Abdul Rahim Nasir, Chairman, All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) believes, regulatory duty on cotton yarn exports would not only distort the momentum gained in exports after decades but also disturb continuity of government policies for export-led growth. He says, the duty would not only agitate the historic high trend of textile exports and roll back investment of more than $4 billion but also deprive the country of projected additional 500,000 jobs.

Nasir emphasized Pakistan had sufficient cotton yarn for export purposes that had enabled the textile sector achieve historic high exports of $15.4 billion. APTMA is the premier national trade association of the textile spinning, weaving, and composite mills representing the organized sector in Pakistan. It is the largest association of the country representing 396 textile mills out of which 315 are spinning, 44 weaving and 37 composite units. The total installed capacity of APTMA member mills accounts for 9,661,366 spindles, 61,608 rotors, 10,452 Shuttleless/Airjet Looms and 1897 conventional looms.