Pakistan’s Textile Crisis: What Went Wrong?

For thousands of years, the land we now call Pakistan has been at the heart of global textile production — from the cotton fields of the Indus Valley to modern export markets. Once contributing over half of Pakistan’s total exports, the textile industry was the backbone of the economy.

Today, that backbone is cracking.

This report explores how rising energy costs, policy inconsistency, collapsing cotton production, and an uneven tax regime have pushed Pakistan’s largest export sector to the brink. While competitors like Bangladesh and Vietnam surged ahead, Pakistan’s textile exports stagnated.

From farmers abandoning cotton to factories shutting down, this is the story of an industry at a crossroads — and the difficult choices that lie ahead.