‘Pakistan can reclaim market’

President Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry says Pakistan has potential to reclaim football market from China.

SIALKOT: Pakistan has the potential to reclaim the football market from China and India since both countries are unable to meet the required standards of hand-stitched balls, according to President Sialkot Chamber of Commerce and Industry Muhammad Ishaq Butt.

However, he said that the vital sports industry had not been receiving the required attention from successive governments, which has resulted in hampered growth. Butt claimed that appeals to federal and provincial governments for setting up sports goods and surgical instruments cities to boost exports had fallen on deaf ears.

“We have the capacity to export footballs worth $100 million if the government helps us in exploring markets, especially Latin America and Asia Pacific.”

He highlighted that the labour-intensive football industry was providing direct and indirect employment to about 80,000 workers while sub-contracting on piece rate, which is a common practice, resulted in the creation of even more jobs.

Currently over 3,000 small and medium-sized and 60 established units are producing quality sports goods – mainly for foreign markets. The major portion of the total production comes from cottage and small-scale manufacturing units.

The chamber’s president explained that despite tough competition from rivals like China, India and Japan, the exporters of Sialkot were earning millions of dollars for the national kitty.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 17^th, 2010.