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Every news has its two sides .. even after all this GOP refuses to allow MFN to India .. while Indians keep trying to get MFN from Pakistan however, Pakistan simply refuses : It surely shows whose desperate !


Of course Pakistan wants as little contact and trade with India as possible. It is not in its best interests to allow people-people contact or business-business contact....because Pakistan govt wants to paint India as some monster that will consume all of Pakistani industry and put every Pakistani out of work.....not to forget the fact that all Indians rape and murder innocent Kashmiris when they get the chance.

India is all for people-people contact....and India wants to discuss every other issue without having to drag in Kashmir all the time....so that mutual trust can be built....because India is a democracy that works on relations of people and the merits of opinions. I guess its hard for Pakistanis like you to understand this....

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On the other hand .. it is also nice to observer that Pakistan is importing raw material from India to produce refined export product. Notwithstanding anything .. we are able to meet our export markers i.e; 7 to 8% increase per annum. I dont think GOP has anything to complain about !


Yes Pakistan can import all the left over cotton in Indian mills that it wants to. That just means more money for our own farmers....that's good news. Its even more amazing that Pakistani industries are going for Indian cotton even though pakistan has granted no MFN status to India.....I mean imagine the potential if there was a true FTA in place.

India exports a quantum more of refined product than Pakistan can ever hope for. I mean look at the very reason why Pakistani producers are turning to Indian cotton in the first place:

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Quality cotton is a question mark for Pakistan, although the government tried invain recently to educate the growers and ginners to produce contamination free cotton. Their end result was zero. The government growers and ginners blame each other for the failure but the fact is that contaminated cotton is harming their interest.


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So what the MFN stories has been cried upon by India since ages !


MFN was a litmus test of whether Pakistan was willing to discuss issues outside the Kashmir context. Since Pakistan has shown it is not been able to.....and also missed out on ample trade opportunities with India....then India has no choice but to play hardball back. It has come to today....where Mushy is making such large concessions on Kashmir that were unthinkable for Pakistan a decade ago. Yet India is perfectly able to refuse even these concessions and maintain the status quo while letting our economy grow and our power grow till it squashes Pakistan into a little itsy bitsy rogue backwater.

India is in the process of acquiring multi billion dollar companies and assets worldwide and in expanding its manufacturing base and global presence.

What has Pakistan got to show for its supposedly freer business and trade policies?... Jacksh1t.

That's why Pakistan textile industry is in such sh1t today and Indian textiles are booming....and also why pakistani companies....despite lack of MFN....are crawling to India to get basic quality cotton.

I mean have a look at:

www.himalmag.com/2007/january/report3.htm

A spate of textile-production units shifting from Pakistan to Bangladesh has alarm bells ringing in Islamabad. Since the translocations began all of a sudden a year ago, Pakistani trade and textile authorities have become frantically engaged in talks with local industry representatives, attempting to convince them to stay in the country. Pakistans textile ministry, first formed in Prime Minister Shaukat Azizs Cabinet in 2004, appears convinced that time is running out for the countrys textile exporters, largely due to an increased cost of doing business. Many worry that a continuation of the situation could trigger capital flight, and cause massive unemployment.

There is an offer of a tax-free investment environment from Bangladesh for our industrialists to set up production units, admits Federal Textile Secretary Syed Masood Alam Rizvi. We have not found anyone taking up the offer, but obviously its a wakeup call for all of us.

Despite Rizvis claim, however, industry sources reveal that at least a half-dozen Pakistani textile companies have already partially or completely shifted their businesses to Bangladesh, citing rising business costs and declining returns within Pakistan. Worried industrialists are not optimistic that the situation could change significantly under the Islamabad governments existing trade rules. The latest data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics reports that Pakistani textile
exports declined by 10.3 percent, to less than USD 2.5 billion, during the first quarter of this fiscal year, which ended in September. Over the same period last year, that figure was more than USD 2.7 billion.

We are challenged by a double-edged sword, says Shafqat Elahi, chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), the largest trade body in the country. On one hand, we face tough competition, mainly from China as well as India and Bangladesh. On the other, our industry is bearing the highest production cost in the region. Things are looking so gloomy that there are even fears of losing the domestic Pakistani market to Chinese, Thai and Indonesian competitors.
The APTMA is particularly angry that Islamabad has not done enough to cushion the industry, as is done in India and Bangladesh. In India there is a government-backed TUFS [Technical Upgradation Funding Scheme], which subsidises the textile industry with loans from commercial banks, says garment exporter Zakir Lalani. He notes that New Delhi launched the scheme in 1999, and is now extending it to 2010. This translates as a continuing threat to the Pakistani competitors. Like Lalani, many industry players see power tariffs in Pakistan as the most critical reason for high cost of doing business. The free gas that Dhaka has offered the industry in Bangladesh has led to similar demands in Pakistan.

Along with prohibitive energy prices, higher interest rates on bank loans, which have witnessed a more than 140 percent jump in the last two years, are adding to the industrys problems. While the industry seeks access to European and US markets, there is a growing sense of discrimination. While a large number of other textile-producing countries have gained relatively easy access due to their being less developed, or for other considerations, Pakistani producers find themselves having to compete with all the handicaps back home. Nor has textile production remained free of geopolitical considerations. The US used to receive more than 85 percent of Pakistani textile exports, but those levels have dropped by 68 percent since the attacks of 11 September 2001.

Some exporters claim the failure as a diplomatic one, with Pakistani authorities unable to win concessions from Western countries for Pakistani calico. In fact we are more eligible for EU concessions as a reward for our role in the war on terror, suggests Lalani. While the EU offers zero-percent tariffs on Bangladeshi garment imports, it charges what is referred to as an anti-dumping duty on some Pakistani products. This 13.1 percent duty was added in 2004 to bed-linen imports from Pakistan, claiming that cheap products from the country were causing injury to the European textile industry. The decision hit Pakistan hard, as bed-linen exports to the EU countries had previously earned more than USD 400 million per year. This move, coupled with stiff competition amidst rising production costs, may push textile exports down even further by the end of this fiscal year. Last year, textile products accounted for more than 60 percent of the USD 18 billion worth of total Pakistani exports, which gives an indication of the industrys importance.It is the total of these pressures that have pushed local investors to look at the Bangladesh option, says Shabbir Ahmed, a bed-wear exporter. Some have really capitalised on the opportunity.

Poor incentives
When local industry representatives first visited Bangladesh in October of 2005, the Islamabad government was criticised for having not taken the initiative to offer the sector a better incentives package. There is a need to determine priorities first, says Faisal Shaji, a financial analyst. Expansion of industrial operations is a worldwide pheno-mena, but the case in Pakistani textiles is different. Being a developing economy, the country cant afford the shifting of business units of the core industry.

While the government did offer the textile sector a PKR 40 billion relief package through export rebates and concessions on loan mark-ups, textile businesses are desperate for more. We will lose our export orders, which we find difficult to comply with because of a rise in production cost, warns Aziz Memon, chairman of Kings Group, a large garment exporter. Once we lose a market after having failed to service our booked orders, it is next to impossible to get back there again.
Textile exports in Pakistan are projected to earn USD 11.5 billion this fiscal year, up from USD 10.1 billion last year. But Shaji feels the sector may miss that target specifically due to issues of incentives, which are still unsettled between the industry and the government. He says that the cost of doing textiles business in Pakistan is much higher than in other Southasian countries, mainly due to exorbitant and unbalanced energy costs. The fertiliser industry pays PKR 81 per million BTUs [British thermal units], while the textile sector pays PKR 246 for the same, he says.

Pakistans textile problems can also be traced to outdated and obsolete management practices within the industry, however. Shaji blames the industry for not taking modern managerial practice seriously enough back when it could have afforded to do so. In the meantime, competing countries such as China, India and Bangladesh did invest in this area, thereby better equipping themselves for the challenges ahead. In our industry, he notes, there is almost no attention placed on human-resource training. Plus, there is hardly one operation in the whole country that avoids wastages.

While Islamabad promises that it will address the issue, it is insisting on long-term policy changes rather than short-term relief. Textile Secretary Rizvi says that a national committee is slated to submit its recommendations by the end of December. While he speaks optimistically of the committees current interaction with a spectrum of textile bodies, Rizvi also expresses some help-lessness amidst the current scenario: In the free environment, one cant stop anyone from
shifting his or her business and production unit. But the government is concerned that it could cause unemployment, and thats why we are here with an incentives plan.

And it is not as though Islamabad has sat on its haunches. The current slowdown comes on the heels of a USD 6 billion investment by the government in the sector over the past five years. Experts see the textile ministrys new strategy as a last-ditch attempt by Islamabad to keep local industries in the country, and to keep the sector competitive. Textile manufacturers are also pinning their hopes on the governments actions. But there is a strong feeling among both industry players and government officials that if the new approach fails to attract local industry, Pakistan may witness desperate and potentially catastrophic moves from the industry.

The government will have to take all proposals into account before finalising the strategy, says analyst Shaji. If it doesnt work, I fear we will miss the last boat.

www.emergingtextiles.com/?n=1&q=art&r=free&s=061211Pkstn

Pakistan's textile and clothing exports are sharply falling as a result of a series of issues, from high interest rates and power costs to lack of quality, R/D and training, our Correspondent in Pakistan reports. In order to restore exports, the government is preparing a new textile package that will be announced before Heimtextil takes place by early January in Frankfurt.
- From our Pakistan Correspondent

Textile and clothing exports from Pakistan fell 5.11 per cent to US$787.6 million in October, as against US$829.98 million during the same month last year. Cumulative decline for July to October period is 9.19 per cent.

Export of fabrics, made ups (including bed wear), and towels even decreased by 29 per cent, 19 per cent and 18 per cent respectively, in US$ terms. While raw cotton and yarn were down by 22 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.

In the clothing category, woven apparel experienced a decline of 5 per cent, while knitwear garments are up 21 per cent.

Main factors affecting exports are high financial and power costs, according to domestic industry associations.
Heavy loans

Textile industrialists took heavy loans from banks when interest rates were as low as 3% to 4%. They later invested in real estate business which resulted in strong profits.

Interest rates in Pakistan have however jumped to around 14% and this is affecting financial costs of textile exporters.

Power cost is the second main factor depressing exports. Most of the mills used their own gas-based captive power generation. Gas prices have however increased by around 50 per cent in two years.

Another major cause is the decline in export prices.

Government of Pakistan is paying up to 6 per cent Research and Development support to different textile and clothing products for exports. The industry in return is however reducing prices rather than improving products' quality.
Lack of training

Textile industrialists do not enough invest on human resource development.

There is an acute shortage of trained manpower for textile industry, which is affecting quality of the products.

Economies of scale is another problem for Pakistan textile and clothing industry as most of the textile units perform only single process (spinning, weaving, or processing).

There are very few vertically integrated mills. Although there is a large number of SMEs working in textile and clothing industry, facilities like bank loans and government support is only limited to the big players, in addition.
EU anti-dumping duties

Due to anti dumping duty by EU on bed wear products, Pakistan has been facing very tough competition from China and India in this category, where the decline is around 20 per cent compared with last year July-October figure.

Pakistan was once the largest importer of Pima cotton which is used for bedwear products. The business is now shifting to India and China.

The decline in textile exports is a source of concern for the government, given their share in total Pakistan's exports.

The Pakistan's government has formed a task force called "National Textile Strategy Committee" to finalize recommendations and rapidly stop the decline in exports.
Textile package

The committee has submitted its report to the textile ministry. The document is being presented to the Prime minister. The committee has suggested a reduction in gas prices, review of exchange rate policy and relief on certain levies.

The government was also said considering up to 10 per cent devaluation of currency, but this has been officially denied.

The textile package should be announced before Heimtextil takes place in early January.

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Be it 101 or 501 .. thats what is called hard realities !


Your realities are about as hard as sloppy severe diarrhea.

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Of course & you forgot the locally indegeniously produced LCA, ARJUN, TRISHUL ....



I suggest you visit the aeroindia 2007 thread for full fleged pictures of the recent LCAs flying in their full glory....and pictures of them in a full production line up.

The Arjun is also going into production, upgraded and modified and will play a distinct and significant role in our army.

Trishul was a project we have learnt many valuable lessons from as is true in the defence department.

After all we don't simply import knowhow for missiles, tanks, guns, fighter planes from China and paint them in a new colour and pass them off as our own. We actually go through the process.....after all engineering and science is in our blood....look at the number of indian origin engineers and scientists in NASA, silicon valley and other high tech sectors and companies.

It is no surprise htat many of them are returning to India to start their own companies. With time, India will become a knowledge hub and R&D centre for the world. Give the private sector a larger role to play in defense and given the natural increase at home for engineers and scientists to power the economy forwards.....we will only see more and more successes and failures....but more importantly a coherent and stable knowledge infrastructure develop and expand.

No shortcut solutions here.