FAISALABAD: Pakistan’s Ambassador to Italy Jauhar Saleem has said that the Italy-Pakistan Textile Technology Center (IPTTC) established at National Textile University Faisalabad (NTUF) would improve Pakistan’s textile processing and enrich required skills.
During the inauguration ceremony held at NTU, Jauhar Saleem said that technological advancement in textiles would help Pakistan stay competitive in the European Union (EU) market, where it exports textile products worth over $5 billion.
“The EU market is changing fast especially due to Covid-19 so our exporters need to follow and match new trade trends in the EU,” he added.
Italian Ambassador to Pakistan Andrease Ferrarese said that the tech centre would also help in creating jobs and improving the working conditions in the Pakistani textile sector, adding that Italy would act as a strategic alliance for Pakistan to promote its trade and development agenda.
He said that the centre has been equipped with state of the art Italian textile machinery that would help to improve textile processing, especially the finishing and final look of products.
Italy has provided machinery for the textile sector under an an MoU was signed between Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP) and the Italian Trade Agency (ITA) in 2018.
Italy had previously provided machinery for the Footwear Technology Centre at Lahore under the MoU which agrees to cooperate in value chain promotional initiatives aiming at promoting Pakistani final goods manufactured with Italian machinery.
The importance of the textile industry in Pakistan’s national economy can be found in its substantial contribution to employment, value addition and around 60 per cent share in export earnings.
It may be mentioned here that the Pakistani textile sector is picking up growth again with exports registering an early recovery from the Covid-19 impact.
