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As Pakistan’s industrial sector witnessed an overall decline in recent years, reorganizing and modernizing this sector would be an uphill task for the new government.
With two seasoned politicians in the driving seats as President of Pakistan and the Prime Minister of Pakistan, the business community hopes for revolutionary steps to make local industry compatible with international standards for capturing more markets.
Due to the volatile situation in the country during the past half decade and rising input expenditures, many small industrialists were reluctant to invest more in the textile sector, especially the hosiery industry.
Businessmen are continuing with old and obsolete machinery although it costs them much than the latest technology making their products incompatible with goods being sold in the international market.
“Most of our machinery is old and tromped, causing heavy energy wastage besides other inefficiencies in our overall production process,” remarked Mian Abdur Rasheed, a veteran industrialist. “As they use old motors, their energy cost jumps up due to wastage of energy. Even then they prefer to pay high cost in energy bills.”
When asked about the reasons behind this tendency, he said that these industrialists witnessed uncertain situations in recent years and were reluctant to invest more to replace their old motors.
“Therefore, we expect the new government to direct its departments to focus on these issues and provide owners free consultation to improve their efficiency and control energy wastage,” he stated.
“Although individually these are small units, yet collectively they are contributing a sizable share in local economy employing thousands of workers,” he said adding, “Therefore, they should be facilitated and guided to benefit from modern technologies to enhance their profitability.”
As the hosiery sector can be segregated into local and export units, Jinnah Colony Faisalabad, Islam Nagar, Gulistan Colony, Haji Abad, Guru Nanak Pura have emerged as a hub of small hosiery units for local consumption while the major export units are housed in Millat Town, Jaranwala-Khurrianwala Industrial Belt, Value-Added City, Allama Iqbal Industrial Estate and Small Industrial Estate near Nalka Kohala.
When contacted different local hosiery owners, their problems felt identical as also faced by the overall industrial sector like the high cost of doing business and non-availability of cheaper raw materials like fine counts of yarn consumed by hosiery units.
“We think the uncertainty prevailed in the country in the recent past and high energy tariff were the major causes to hamper the growth of the hosiery industry to a desired level,” remarked the spokesman of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers Association (PHMA) North Zone.
He said hosiery is a value-added sector playing a major role in enhancing national exports and earning precious foreign exchange for the country. But, prices of electricity, gas and oil products constrain them from growing and re-investment to install state-of-the-art units.
“High mark-up rate and nonavailability of raw material are other issues confronting this sector and needed to be addressed on war footing to save this industry,” he added.
Since Pakistan’s major export portion is related to the textile sector, its hosiery is an integral part of the value-added sector. But, simply taking the instance of Faisalabad – a home to the hosiery industry – our value added sector could not grow as desired.
“Pakistan is bestowed with valuable natural resources and a unique geo-political situation. However, we lack sustainable and industry supported policies,” said Khawaja Muhammad Amjad, a member of Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturing Association (PHMA). “The government must play its role to introduce business friendly policies in industrial and agriculture sector – the main raw material producing sector for industries.”
He proposed the use of modern technology as well as less taxation, cheaper energy and inputs, and ease of doing business for enhancing overall production and revenue. “We can achieve sustainable growth by introducing favorable policies and thereon emerge as major players in the world markets.”
Vice Chairman of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association, Muhammad Idrees suggested to working on lean manufacturing processes and advancement in sustainable textiles. “We must take diverse steps in productivity, efficiency, eco-friendly quality control systems and social ethics.”
Technical experts believe in a broader collaboration among stakeholders like technical institutions, industrialists and policymakers for the revival of industry.
“Such a collaboration among institutes like Pakistan National Federation of Trade Unions (NTUF) with academia, community, industry and government can make an impact through knowledge-based textiles,” underscored Engineer Prof. Dr Yasir Nawab Dean Faculty of School of Engineering and Technology at National Textile University.
“We have launched a skill efficiency and proficiency program for training of industries professionals,” he said. “We are looking towards industrialists for technology transfer and up-scaling their ability to boost our economy through exporting value-added products to international markets.” These experts recommended that the new government should realign its policies to transform Pakistan from a net-importing to a net-exporting country and cited that although it is a tough decision yet an imperative for the revival of our industrial sector.
They believed in incentivizing the industrial sector for sustainable growth, enhancing exports, generating more revenue for debt retirement, creating much-needed job opportunities for the burgeoning population, and above all achieving the ultimate target of a stable national economy.
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