FAISALABAD: The European Union is expected to grant the much-awaited GSP plus status for Pakistani textile exports in February which will boost export volume to Europe by 20%, said Trade Development Authority of Pakistan Chief Executive Tariq Iqbal Puri.
Objections from India and Bangladesh have been removed while those by South American countries will also be removed soon, said Puri while addressing textile exporters at Pakistan Textile Exporters Association on Thursday.
Tariq Puri said that to face the challenges of current world economic recession, increase in national exports is need of the hour.
He said that although the textile sector is passing through a very hard time, exporters managed to crossed $25 billion exports last year.
The knitwear sector last year entered into rehabilitation process but unfortunately all efforts went fruitless as a declining trend in exports was observed, he said. Holding meetings with trade associations was the ongoing process to get accurate information about our exports and problems so that we could help our exporters to increase our national exports, he said.
Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Chairman Rana Arif Tauseef said that export volume of textile items is showing a downward trend and if this trend continues, textile exports could reach $300 million per month. The country relies heavily on the textile sector for exports as they stood at 56% of total exports in fiscal 2010. Gas closure has drastically impacted the industrial productivity and is also causing continuous decline of exports, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 20th, 2012.
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Don;t hold your breath, on this. Europe is at present in dire condition, Consumer confidence is at low, hence even China is suffering reduction in their exports to the region. So how can Pakistan increase its exports, purely on basis of GSP ?
the euro economy is screwed big time.. so forget about increasing demand
In reading this article i am seeing 2 conflicting pieces of information and the author has not integrated that to provide a conclusion: 1. Textile exports to Europe could grow due to rferential duties kicking in which would make Pak textiles more competitive thus increasing demand 2. Textile exports are reducing and could continue to reduce due to the inability of textile producers to supply goods due to load shedding and reductions in gas supply.
So the question is EVEN if there is demand for Pak products, if manufacturers are unable to produce the goods and supply them, as appears to be stated in this article, how will the increased demand actually translate into higher exports?