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Pakistan:APTMA protests do not deter TCP from exporting cotton |
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2004-11-10
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In face of strong protest, the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) said it would continue to export of cotton but hinted that the corporation may sell cotton in the local market after March.
Recently, the TCP, floated a tender for export of 20,000 cotton bales and turned down the textile industry’s demand to stop the commodity’s export arguing that the move would tantamount to providing subsidy to its foreign competitors.
“The export plan is as per government’s policy,” TCP Chiarman Syed Masood Alam Rizvi. “We are in the market to support growers. It doesn’t make sense to purchase cotton from growers and then sell it to the local market,” he added.
However, the TCP chief said the corporation would consider selling bales to the textile industry after March when growers would complete selling of phutti.
Meanwhile, the Textile industry seeks review, but spinners and textile industrialists oppose this strategy and have asked the government for a review.
“Nobody came to our rescue last year when we were forced to purchase cotton at as high a price as Rs 3,600 a maund,” said chairman APTMA Arif Saeed.
He said it is incorrect that growers would be facilitated from TCP’s export plan. “It is absolutely a wrong strategy,” he said. “The export would more serve ginners and brokers. Growers have nothing to do with it. It does not make any sense. We have officially asked the inter-ministerial committee to review its cotton export plan so the local industry can get benefit of a good crop.”
Others agreed and said the intervention was uncalled for.
“Earlier we were expecting to import two millions bales,” said Waqar Monnoo, a senior industrialist and former chairman APTMA. “But now we think the figures would not cross 1 million mark.” But he said if the government through the TCP continues the export of cotton then it would be difficult to maintain import figures. “If the TCP’s succeeds to export one million bales then it would ultimately force millers to import another one million bales extra,” said Monnoo. |
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