Three-day 18th International Textile Asia Exhibition which was organised jointly by Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) and E-Commerce Gateway Pakistan ended successfully on Monday. The event attracted $375 million investment to Pakistan with signing of various memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with foreign companies for joint ventures with local companies.

The exhibition was participated by over 500 foreign delegates. The exhibiting countries included Austria, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Italy, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, UK, USA etc. Around 52,000 visitors registered their presence in the textile fair.

On the last day of the exhibition, PRGMEA Central Chairman Ijaz Khokhar addressing the MoUs signing ceremony said that Chinese companies from different cities and provinces like Shanghai, Guangzhou, Jiangsu, Sujian and Shandong had shown their interest to relocate their textile, garment and accessories production units in Punjab, having investment of at least $25m for each unit.

The foreign companies also committed to transfer their technologies, besides buying back Pakistani products after value-addition here that would enhance local export and lowering Pakistan trade deficit with China.

They will make JVs with local companies from Gujranwala, Lahore, Sialkot and Faisalabad, providing training to the engineers from these cities of manufacturing spare parts of sewing and textile machineries and buyback them to export to China.

Khokhar said that PRGMEA and E-Commerce Gateway Pakistan had also signed the agreement to continue to jointly conduct this mega textile event in future on annual basis.

PRGMEA Vice Chairman Jawwad Chaudhry said that machinery and equipments displayed at the exhibition were of immense utility to manufacturers producing value-added products for increasing volume of exports.

He hoped that local businessmen would benefit from this technology by adding value to their products. The Textile Asia Expo also featured businessmen-to-businessmen (B2B) meetings, industry-related presentations and seminars on textile sector.

E-Commerce Gateway Pakistan CEO Dr Khurshid Nizam said that this textile machinery fair in Pakistan would increase productivity, resulting in better competitiveness. The exhibition was aimed at focusing Punjab potential of textile and garment machinery, accessories, raw material supplies, chemicals and allied services under one-roof, as around 80 percent of textile industry was located in this province.

The exhibition also provided an effective platform for joint ventures and collaborations to textile sector's local small textile industry.