Compared to last year, Pakistan’s textile exports have managed to continue recovering in the 10MFY18 period with modest growth of 8 per cent. The segments that contributed the most to this growth in value terms were knitwear and readymade garments, registering an increase of almost 15 and 12 per cent respectively.

This year’s growth in textile exports has mostly been based on a boost in the value added segments. Readymade garments have also increased by 13.5 per cent. However, the state of overall sector remains mired with problems which continue to hamper growth. The outgoing government has left it in some cases to the last months of its tenure to address issues which have been red-flags for some time now.

The government has failed to address the issue as gas provision to majority of Punjab-based textile industry has been R-LNG. This costs almost Rs 1200/MMBTU and unless a weighted average formula is adopted by the next government, matters would become grimmer in the time to come.

Similarly, the government has realized in its final days high power tariffs for the textile sector are counter-productive and there are talks of bringing down the electricity tariff by Rs 3. Association (PTEA), not even a single processed sales tax refund claim has been paid for 8 months while huge amount of sales tax RPOs is also pending payment. The only thing that can be determined for a certainty is that the PML-N government did things too little and too late for recovery of the textile sector.