Bangladesh Draws Pakistan's Garment Makers

•  karachi
• Friday, September 23, 2011
• Inter Press Service

'We have not moved (to Bangladesh), we have expanded there,' says Salamat Tauseef, president of the All-Pakistan Hosiery Association.

Since 2007, his company, Tauseef Enterprises, has been running a garments factory in Bangladesh with investments worth 12 million dollars and employing 3,000 Bangladeshis.

Tauseef says he would have loved to expand his business in Pakistan now that his son, 27-year-old Raheel Salamat, has joined the business; but the country 'just does not seem conducive.'

In fact, Tauseef believes that Pakistan’s garments and hosiery industry is 'breathing its last,' not only because of rising security issues but also because of serious power problems in the main textile hub of Faisalabad. Last year, Faisalabad, often called the ‘Manchester of Pakistan’ for its extensive textile industry, did not get adequate gas supplies for 122 days with failures extending to eight hours on each of those days, said Tauseef.

'Also, we would be without electricity for three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening,' he said. Currently, his factory, with 6,000 employees, is working at 30 percent of its capacity, thanks to power cuts. Formerly known as Lyallpur, Faisalabad, located in the Punjab province, is Pakistan’s third largest city with an estimated population of 3.2 million people.

Faisalabad’s importance depends greatly on the textile industry, the mainstay of the country’s economy. Pakistan is the world’s fourth largest producer of cotton, sixth largest importer of raw cotton, and also the biggest exporter of cotton yarn.

According to Yasin Siddiq, spokesman for the All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association, the national trade association, the textiles sector accounts for over 50 percent of total exports and around 38 percent of the manufacturing sector workforce, or 3.5 million workers.

Pakistan’s preeminence in the textile sector is now seriously being threatened by Bangladesh. 'Bangladesh is among the least developed countries and enjoys a tax-free export facility to the European Union (EU) and 10 other developed countries,' says Siddiq. 'Pakistan, on the other hand, faces tariffs in the EU and U.S. markets.'

Salim Tabani, a Karachi-based garment manufacturer, says, 'The government should appeal to the world community to give us a duty free status in line with Bangladesh.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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