Aptma to hold meeting today

LAHORE: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Punjab management has convened an emergent meeting of its central executive committee today to take a decision about closing down the industry operations across Punjab.

Aptma Punjab Chairman Adil Bashir deplored the prevailing uncertainty due to the inordinate delay in the issuance of notification for a regionally competitive energy price by the government, which he said was seriously impacting the growth in exports, production, and investment.

He said the government had announced in a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) on September 27 to provide energy supply to the Punjab-based exporting industry, both for captive and processing use, at regionally competitive price to make it viable and to revive the closed capacity here.

The export data for the month of October 2018 indicates that both the industry and exports have become the victim of prevailing uncertainty, as the export of cotton yarn and cotton cloth have dropped by over 39 percent and 24.11 percent, respectively against the corresponding period. Also, the overall exports of textile and clothing have declined by 0.21 percent during the same period.