At the 7th meeting of National Assembly Standing Committee on Textile Industry was held on Monday, PSDP Budgetary proposals worth Rs 69.370 billion was given approval after a detailed discussion for the year 2015-16. Also Faisalabad Garment city phase 2 worth Rs598.5 million, Faisalabad Garment City Training Centre costing Rs60 million, Karachi garment city phase 1, amounting Rs805.119 million, were discussed in detail.

The committee also talked about monitoring and management of BT resistance in cotton boll worms project, costing Rs59.822 million , cotton as relay crop in standing wheat for enhancing productivity of cotton and wheat crop estimated at Rs17.190 million, development of management strategies for red and dusky cotton bugs, a Rs 59.928 million project and implementation of cotton standardization system for the production of high quality standardized clean cotton under Prime Minister’s skill development programme. The project costs around Rs75.160 million.

The continuations of ongoing projects, which are included in PSDP 2014-2015, were also discussed.

Pak-Korea Garment Technology Training Institute Karachi, strengthening of National Textile University Research Centre, strengthening of research and development Cell, Skill Development Programme for Informal Textile Industry, are running projects which were approved after discussion.

Parliamentarian Abdul Rasheed Godel drew attention towards increasing raw cotton export and demand for duty on imported yarn. He also came up with the suggestion of establishing sales offices in Dubai and South Africa.

The minister textile industry proposed that Pakistan textile city Karachi must be an agenda item in the next meeting, so that the issues related to the much delayed project can be addressed as soon as possible as the project would provide employment to over 50,000 people.

The federal minister for textile industry Abbas Khan Afridi stated that raw cotton export results in competitive advantage for other countries such as Bangladesh and negatively impacts their exports. Value-addition is norm of the day and must be encouraged.