PHMA ELECTIONS COMPLETED Mr. Mohammad Amjad Khawaja was elected as Chairman, Mr. Zia ur Rehman Chaudhry as Senior Vice Chairman and Mr. Shahid Rafi as Vice Chairmen of the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association. Result of elections was announced in the Annual General Meeting of the Association held today. The newly elected members of Central Executive Committee are Mr. Raheel Anjum, Mr. Hassan Raza, Sheikh Zafar Mehmood, Mr. Akmal Raza and Mr. Tariq Mehmood Bhatti. Members elected on Zonal Committee include Mr. M. Afzal Awan, Mr. Usman Jawaad, Mr. Sajid Hussain Bhatti, Mr. Moazzam Javaid and Sheikh M. Sarwat Kapoor. Newly elected office bearers will resume their office from 1st October 2013. Newly elected Chairman of the Association Mr. M. Amjad Khawaja said that knitwear export industry is the largest employment providing sector of the economy, besides being the leading export earning sector. He explained that constraints being confronted by the industry due to war like situation being faced by Pakistan is a major set back to our industry otherwise we could do lot more than this. Foreign importers are reluctant to come to Pakistan for placing export orders while we have to cross so many hurdles for managing our foreign travels. Mr. Khawaja was critical about intensity of load shedding of electricity and gas which have practically crippled the value added knitwear garment sector in particular. “What to talk of expansion of units or further industrialization and investment in the country while the existing factories are remaining unable to utilize their capacity,” he questioned the government high ups. He declared that our industry can meet the foreign exchange requirements of country if we are enabled to work day and night. On the other hand Mr. Khawaja also impressed upon industry to plan for tackling the energy problem at their own level because government would not do sufficient for them. He therefore advised the businessmen to find their own solutions according to their own needs to become able to meet the market requirements. He resolved that Association would play leading role in this regard. He categorically stated that China factor is not only opening new opportunities for us but also coming up with challenging threats of different kinds. He therefore advised the business community to be ready for dealing with difficulties coming ahead. The outgoing chairman Mr. Adil Butt expressed the hope that present government would realize the difficulty of Industry and would take concrete steps to bring it on the track. He welcomed the government decision to reduce the rate of withholding Sales Tax from 17% to 1%. and was of the view that it would ease the value added textile sector. He was stern on his version that government should create evabling environment for industry to earn more foreign exchange instead of banking up IMF packages because we know how to bring our country out of crises. He added that government has not been releasing sufficient funds to the State Bank of Pakistan to clear long outstanding drawback claims, putting exporters in the difficulty of liquidity crunch. He therefore demanded that Ministry of Textile Industry should immediately take up the issue with Ministry of Finance for early release of concerned funds so that exports of country should not suffer. He stressed that the amount is question is neither a subsidy nor a rebate, rather it is the right of exporters as the export costing had incorporated such drawback component to make the products competitive in overseas markets.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Sep 2013 06:34:21 +0000
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