LAHORE, Feb 29: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has demanded of the government to announce a package for the revival of the country’s collapsing textile industry for protecting millions of jobs and exports.

“We are not asking for cash assistance. We want the government to immediately give us a revival package that ensures uninterrupted supply of gas seven days a week and restructures the industry’s outstanding bank loans,” former Aptma chairman Gohar Ejaz told a news conference on Wednesday.

Gohar, who is also leader of his group in Aptma, said the energy shortages for the textile industry in Punjab had pushed the industry’s infected loan ratio to 31.5 per cent as of September 2011 from 24 per cent in June.

“If the industry is not provided uninterrupted gas supplies from March 1, the textile industry’s non-performing loans could rise to 50 per cent by the end of March,” he said.

He said the country’s major export earning industry would turn into a junkyard unless the government immediately announced a package to provide relief to the industry by providing gas to it and rescheduling its outstanding loans.

He said the number of mills closing down because of gas shortages and high cost of credit was increasing. “The mills defaulting on their loan payments are not doing so intentionally. The gas shortages and high credit costs are forcing capacity closures and defaults.

He said the collapse of the textile industry would lead to lawlessness in the country and the government should take Aptma’s warning as a wake-up call. “Hence, the government should take immediate steps for rescuing it and averting its collapse.”

Aptma-Punjab chairman Ahsan Bashir said the gas supply to the industry in Punjab had remained suspended for 175 days during last year and 52 days in the first two months of this year. “The impact of gas closure can now be seen in the shape of up to 40 per cent quantitative reduction in textile exports during the first seven months of the current fiscal to January, translating into $4 billion export loss,” he said.

Ahsan said the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited had supplied gas to the textile industry for merely eight days during the last two months. “The desperate textile millers have started contacting the association for the sale of their units,” he said.

He said the SNGPL had not displayed change of gas load management plan despite improvement in weather condition.