LAHORE: Federal Commerce Minister Pervaiz Malik on Wednesday assured that textile value chain was topmost priority in federal budget 2018-19.
Addressing an International Conference on Textiles and Clothing- Inspiring Change- at a local hotel, he said that China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) would further contribute to Pakistan’s economic upsurge that would expand exponentially as the Paki-China partnership extended beyond energy and transportation to other sectors and textile was atop, said a press release issued here.
Approximately Rs50 billion has been released by the government for the textile sector during the current financial year and these steps have arrested the declining trend of exports and now textile exports during the current financial year have increased by 7.17 per cent compared to last year.
Various other facilitations were also under consideration for the upcoming federal budget, he said and asserted that such measures would provide long-term sustainability to the textile sector.
Pervaiz Malik said that Pakistan’s economy had recorded a remarkable revival in the past five years as today Pakistan is on a high growth trajectory with economic growth at around six per cent per annum.
Globally credible institutions like Price Water House Coopers, he quoted as saying, “Pakistan economy is set to be among the 20 largest economies (G20) of the world by 2030 and 15th largest economy by 2050”.
Pervaiz Malik said that government had provided various facilitations to textile sector, which included reduction in markup rate on Long Term Financing Facility (LTFF) for 3-10 years duration from around 11.4 per cent to 5 per cent, besides inclusion of spinning and ginning sector in the LTFF, duty-free import of textile machinery continued for 2017-18, uninterrupted electricity and gas supply to textile sector. He added that the Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF) Schemes 2016-19 for textile sector had been notified and amount for the year 2016-17 had already been released to the State Bank.
He further went on to say that textile machinery was made zero-rated under PM’s Export-Package and continued for 2017-18.
