Asad Umar assures textile exporters of resolving ERF issue

Faisalabad: Federal Minister for Planning, Development & Special Initiatives Asad Umar has said the real target for the country is to achieve sustainable growth in exports as sustainability in exports is the only recipe to cope with the economic miseries of Pakistan.

Addressing the members of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) here on Thursday, Umar congratulated the exporters on achieving highest ever 18.28% surge in FY 2020-21 despite adverse impacts of Covid-19 pandemic.

World's major economies shrunk mainly due to the deadliest Covid-19 waves, but it is Pakistan that showed tremendous performance in increasing the exports; whereas the regional competing economies of India and Bangladesh remained in the negative zone. "All credit goes to our valued exporters who performed extremely well even in challenging times of pandemic."

Responding to a question, he assured to take up the issue of insufficient allocation of ERF with finance ministry and SBP.

The minister stressed the need to focus on diversification and SME promotion as these two segments would lead Pakistan towards economic heights.

He considered textile industry as the backbone of economy; whereas textile exporters as key players in economic development of the country.

"Remedial measures to overcome the challenges are being taken to uplift this sector. The government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Imran Khan, is imparting all possible facilities to the export sectors as it is playing a major role in bringing economic stability. No country could achieve economic targets without the due role of exporters; therefore, all-out efforts are being done to facilitate export industries.

Earlier, patron-in-chief PTEA Khurram Mukhtar, commended the government's policies and Prime Minister Imran Khan's revolutionary steps to enhance exports. Despite strict fiscal constraints, timely and appropriate policy measures taken by the Government resulted in a V-Shaped economic recovery, he said and added that Pakistan can become an economic giant by utilizing its trade and investment potential.

Giving presentation on way forward towards sustainable export-led growth, described that economy has rebounded strongly in FY-2021 posting a growth of 3.94% which is not only substantially higher than the previous two years but also surpassed the target of 2.1% set for FY-2021.

Presenting the road map for sustainable growth, he highlighted the issues of outstanding refunds, inadequate working lines with banks, insufficient allocation of ERF, continuity of energy package, continuity of Duty Drawback of Taxes (DDT), reduction in period of re-imbursement of export proceeds, logistic issues arise on account of cartelization and poor infrastructure facilities in industrial zones.

He described that textile exporters are committed to achieve $21 billion target of textile exports in FY 22 as vast range of global opportunities are emerging in textile domain and it is the time to support textile export sector to fulfill the Prime Minister’s vision of economic prosperity through enhanced exports.

Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Furrukh Habib, Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance Faizullah Kamoka, Provincial Minister for Culture & Colonies Khayal Ahmad Kastro, Member National Assembly Sheikh Khurram Shahzad were also present.