Pakistan’s readymade garments industry has asked Prime Minister Imran Khan to order a forensic audit of yarn producers to break their cartel by taking actions as his administration has taken earlier against the sugar cartel.
Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association claimed in a letter addressed to the prime minister that the yarn producers have increased the yarn rates by more than 40 percent in spite of decreasing cotton prices in the international market, which is producing difficulties in apparel sector exports.
Prgmea Chairman Sohail Sheikh said the government will have to take serious steps to break the yarn industry cartel to avoid manipulation of yarn prices in the future. He also asked FBR and FIA to conduct raids on the warehouses of yarn dealers who have been hoarding huge quantities of yarn to create artificial shortages to manipulate rates in connivance with the manufacturers, taking advantage of low domestic cotton output.
Prgmea Chief Coordinator Ijaz Khokhar said that the arrival of low-cost cotton yarn from India through land route as approved by the ECC could have broken the powerful textile cartel, shaking the monopoly of yarn producers to fix the rates artificially very high.
Prgmea demanded that the government should allow duty-free import of cotton yarn from all around the world for at least six months to arrest the commodity crisis that continues to hit the local market.
Globally, the prices of cotton have dropped significantly but the commodity is still costlier in Pakistan.
