Representatives of Pakistan's textile industry and the Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) has appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir Khan to help save the polyester filament fabric industry from further disaster.

Around 300,000 knitting machines and looms have suspended operations during the last five years, resulting in directly and indirectly affecting a total of around 5 million people, Danish Hanif, chairman PYMA (Sindh-Balochistan Zone), said in the statement.

The inefficient and outdated domestic polyester filament yarn (PFY) industry does not meet even 25 per cent of the total demand of Pakistan. Hanif added that the PFY attracts 12 percent custom duty versus polyester fibre, which attracts only 7 percent custom duty.

In addition, local polyester staple fibre (PSF) production is enough to suffice Pakistan’s requirement, whereas production of polyester yarn is only 25 percent of the required quantity for Pakistan, still import duty of the PFY is at 12 percent compared to polyester fiber at 7 percent.

It added that the ongoing Anti-Dumping Investigation on polyester filament yarn (PFDY/PDTY), which is a basic raw material for the polyester fabric is totally unjustified. The user industry would be unnecessarily penalised even for those products, which are not produced by the domestic industry, the PYMA said, adding that the cost for the end user would increase substantially and that would affect the weaving and knitting industry.

They appealed to the concerned authorities to reduce custom duty on polyester filament yarns (P-FDY and P-DTY) from 12 percent to 7 per cent and impose no further duty in any form.

They have urged the government to act quickly to help the polyester knitted fabric sector avoid further problems in the next 12 months.