Pakistan to bid for hosting fashion conference

Textile association hopeful of bringing the event to Islamabad in 2019

LAHORE: Stakeholders of Pakistan’s textile industry are going to bid for the 35th World Fashion Conference, a global platform for apparel manufacturing countries across all continents, in an effort to organise the event in Islamabad in 2019.

Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) is bidding for the conference, which is held under the banner of International Apparel Foundation (IAF), and is hopeful of bringing it to Pakistan.



Former PRGMEA chairman Khalid Khokhar said the commerce ministry had assured them of full support in bringing the event to Pakistan, which could spark revolutionary change in the country’s apparel sector.

“Pakistan has been a member of IAF for years and the federation has recently opened its regional office in Sialkot,” said Khokhar. He said the IAF president had expressed interest in helping Pakistan in transferring expertise from west to this part of the region.

IAF President Han Bekke, who visited Pakistan last month to inaugurate the regional office, also met with key stakeholders and policymakers in Islamabad to discuss the transfer of technology to Pakistan via different mediums offered by the federation.



“IAF has a huge network of expertise, which we can offer to Pakistan, but it is upon PRGMEA to tell us what they need as we want to focus more on association’s needs as we don’t help individual companies,” Bekke told The Express Tribune recently.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2017.

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