Pakistan's new textile policy to boost exports, create job opportunities

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan plans to roll out a new textile policy in the next couple of months to boost exports, e-commerce, and create job opportunities for youth, a top government official said on Thursday, adding that the government was hoping to make the country part of the global value chain.
The textile industry is the single largest export earning sector of the country and eighth largest exporter of textile products in Asia. There are 423 textile industries working in the country, employing about 40 percent of the country’s total labor force.
The government has been struggling to boost the exports from the current $23 billion to $50 billion by 2030 to strengthen Pakistan’s economy, foreign exchange reserves and bridge the current account deficit by offering different tax incentives to the industry. Other than textiles, Pakistan exports food items, chemical and pharmaceutical products, leather and sports goods to different countries, including the Middle East and Europe.
“The consultation process [on the policy] is underway and its fine-tuning is being done with the help of public and private sectors,” Aliya Hamza Malik, parliamentary secretary for textile, commerce, industries and production, told Arab News in an interview.
She said the initial draft of the five-year policy was ready which would be presented to the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet (ECC) for approval in the next couple of months.
“Our targets [for the industry] will be realistic and achievable,” she said. “We won’t make tall and fake claims.”
Malik said that Pakistan’s exports have registered a significant increase during the COVID-19 pandemic when exports of other countries in the region, including India and Bangladesh, were going down.
“We want to extend maximum benefit to our industry through this policy and are consulting all relevant stakeholders including economists and industrialists to make it more inclusive and comprehensive,” she said.
Pakistan’s textile industry is the fourth largest cotton producer and contributes 8.5 percent to the GDP.

Malik, however, said that her government was focusing beyond the raw material like cotton to boost value addition and export of end products. “We aren’t only focusing on market diversification but also making product and fiber diversification part of the policy.”
“Value addition is the future of textile … and textile is the backbone of our economy,” she said, adding that the government wanted to create more job opportunities for skilled and unskilled labor, boost e-commerce, small and medium enterprises and human resource development through its new policy.
The new policy would also help empower women entrepreneurs and skilled female workers as the government was laying focus on exports of the stitched materials.
“When I talk about value addition, it means we want to focus on stitching and when we will move to it we will need more training. This will help us encourage women participation,” she said.
The parliamentary secretary said that her government was also working on reducing the cost of doing business in Pakistan to make the industry competitive in the region. “Our textile industry is overbooked now … and our next goal is to make Pakistan part of the global value chain,” she said.