MULTAN,Jan 9th: Chairman of Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) Abdul Rasheed Khan has rejected the restriction of the government on yarn export upto 50 million kg a month and offered 2 per cent rebate to yarn manufacturers for supplying their product to the local downstream industry and said ,"we would challenge such restrictions in the court of law besides submitting a petition to the Director of WTO in Pakistan for violating the free trade regime under international law. Talking to newsmen here on Saturday he said that imposing of ban on cotton and cotton yarn or restricting it to particular volume would be tantamount to suicidal attack on the cotton economy. He said that a meeting of the cabinet’s Inter-ministerial Committee on Textile , Textile Minister Rana Farooq Saeed Khan along with the minister of food and agriculture and secretary commerce ruled out a complete ban on yarn export but announced quantitative restrictions on the commodity. This meeting, according to him, suggested that yarn exporters could only export a maximum quantity of 300 million kg in the six months to June (50m kg a month) and the calculation was done considering average export of the commodity over the past three years.The standing committees of the upper and lower houses of parliament had the other day recommended to the Cabinet Committee on Textile to impose a ban on the export of yarn when it crossed 550 million kg.
“If yarn manufacturers provide the commodity for the local value added sector, they will get two per cent as an incentive in the form of rebate,” the meeting decided.
PCGA Chairman said that the food and agriculture ministry and the textile ministry did not support a ban on yarn export while the commerce ministry is in favour of providing cheap raw material for the local value added sector.The committee had also recommended that yarn export should not go beyond 550 million kg against average export of 525 million kg over the last three years.It cautioned that if yarn export was not banned it would definitely hurt government’s efforts to achieve $25 billion textile export target in five years.