Muhammad Usman, Central Chairman of Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) has urged the Federal Finance Minister to save the downstream textile industry. In a letter to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Chairman PYMA pointed out that the local manufacturers of polyester filament yarn can only meet the needs of local downstream industry to the extent of about 25 per cent.

Despite the fact that investigation was currently underway by National Tariff Commission to review anti-dumping duty, the local manufacturers are lobbying very hard to get Regulatory Duty (RD) imposed. Usman said that these attempts by the local manufacturers would put the entire weaving and knitting industry in grave situation, by increasing the cost of their basic raw material (yarn), thus making the entire downstream industry uncompetitive.

They want to create monopoly like situation to give them some short term benefits at the expense of very large downstream sector, which employs millions of people and is the back bone of our economy, Usman added. It is pertinent to note that in 2008 NTC had imposed anti-dumping duties (Max 18 per cent) on the filament yarns originating from Thailand, Malaysia, Korea and Indonesia. At that time there were about 17 local manufacturers of polyester filament yarn and there was no import of polyester yarn from China. Despite of the fact that the anti-dumping duty was levied for over eight years, the number of local manufacturers shrank into four units and their market share decreased.

The long term solution for local manufacturers is to modernise and upgrade their plants and thus enhance capacity to achieve economies of scale. RD is not the right solution, he added.