RECORDER REPORT

FAISALABAD: Enhancement of 200 percent in the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) announced in the federal budget 2014-15 is likely to spell disaster for value-added and export oriented textile industries and oust them from the international export arena.

These apprehensions were envisaged by Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Processing Mills Association (APTPMA) Sheikh Muhammad Ayub through a press release issued by the APTPMA headquarters in Faisalabad.

He said that whereas value-added and export-oriented industries like the textile processing sector who had all along been instrumental in earning valuable foreign exchange to the tune of billions of rupees, these forex earners, for whom Sui gas had assumed the status of a major input and basic raw-material, will be subjected to massive increase in cost of production and untold hardship by way of unprecedented rise in gas tariff.

Elaborating his contention through statistics, Sheikh Ayub stated the government has decided to enhance Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (GIDC) by 200 percent from Rs 100/MMBTU to Rs 300/MMBTU will increase Sui gas prices for industrial consumers about 30 percent, making our products uncompetitive and unviable in the international and domestic markets.

He reiterated that in view of the ongoing energy crisis faced by the value-added and export-oriented textile processing industry, for which natural gas has assumed the status of a major cost ingredient, increase in gas prices, even to the slightest extent, would spell doom, and oust them from the international export market.

Concluding, Sheikh Ayub appealed to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Finance Minister Ishaq Dar to withdraw the decision of enhancement in GIDC announced in the budget, especially in case of value-added and export-oriented industries like textile processing, enabling them to stay competitive in the international market and reap the fruits of GSP Plus.