The Chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association, Mr S.M. Tanveer had called for an emergency meeting of Aptma’s general body to deliberate on the adverse circumstances and found it not viable to incur losses by operating mills partially. Mr Tanveer said on Sunday that the association had decided to ‘voluntarily’ close down the textile industry because of the losses it had been suffering.

The Aptma chairman had appealed to the government to save the textile industry from collapse and save jobs of a 10 million-strong workforce.

According to the Aptma chairman, the cost of doing business in the textile sector has gone through the roof and the burden of incidental taxes, provincial cess, a chronic energy shortage, system inefficiencies and the punitive withholding tax regime have added fuel to the fire. All these act as hurdles to do doing business at ease in Pakistan.

The regional competitors are paying less than 10 cent against 14.50 cent electricity tariff in Pakistan. Majority of the mills are already operating partially because of energy mismatch at present.

Moreover, the investment climate has been affected and the country has been unable to generate exportable surplus to avail of benefits of access to European markets under the GSP Plus facility.

The Aptma chairman said that the owners of mills in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Lahore, Fai¬salabad, Multan and Karachi had decided to close down operations and lay off millions of workers because they had nothing to offer their international buyers against the regional competitors.