KARACHI: The All-Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) will unveil Vision-2020 soon which targets textile exports to touch $26 billion in seven years from the current $13 billion.

This was stated by Yasin Siddik, the newly-elected chairman of Aptma while taking to newsmen here on Monday at Aptma House.

“Despite all odds, textile exporters will march on crossing over barriers and obstacles,” he said.He further said that though exporters are not getting any relief, they would strive to achieve new goals.

Besides energy crises, he said the spinning industry was still vying for enhanced production in cotton crop as it remains stagnant for the last three years at around 12 to 13 million bales.

Yasin Siddik said spinners would go for the Monsanto option. “The Monsanto initiative will be revisited so that we can achieve a larger crop in coming seasons,” he added.

He lamented that frequent increases in taxes and levies and utilities rates make their products uncompetitive.

The association will take up these issues with the government. The Aptma chief said cost of doing business in Pakistan is highest in the region as electricity, gas, bank mark-up and raw material prices have increased.

He explained that electricity rate in Pakistan is 15 cents per unit while it costs 12 cents in India, 10 cents in Sri Lanka and 9 cents in Bangladesh.

Similarly, he said gas per mmbtu in Pakistan is $4.94, $4.20 in India and in Sri Lanka, it is $2.05.

The mark-up rate in Pakistan is at 9.5pc whereas it is charged at 6.56pc in China, 7.74pc in Bangladesh and 7.75pc in Sri Lanka.

Siddik mentioned that dollar has also revalued to over Rs109 which has made extremely difficult for the industry to survive due to increased cost of input.

He said the association would try harder for Pakistan to qualify for the GSP plus status in European Union as Pakistan becomes eligible for the preferential tariff in January next year. The outgoing chairman, Ahsan Bashire, and group leader, Gohar Ejaz, expressed their anguish over the situation being faced by the industry.