At the end of March, some 20 Pakistani textile companies, including those from the home textile, knitting and readymade garment sectors, confirmed to shift their production units to Bangladesh where they are offered a favourable tax-free term.
The relocation will start in a month or two by building new facilities or acquiring existing factories in Bangladesh, a web report said on Thursday.
In addition to them, there had been many more, who were considering to relocate their operations to the neighbouring Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, where better market access and lower production costs were provided, report said quoting Pakistan Readymade Garment Manufacturers' Association (Prgmea) Chairman Bilal Mullah as saying.
He said while Bangladesh and Sri Lanka enjoyed a generalised system of preference (GSP) plus status in both the European Union (EU) countries and the US markets, Pakistani bed linens were still faced with an anti-dumping duty of 7.5 percent from the EU.
Mullah also pointed out that it was easy and cheaper to recruit labours in those two countries. "Bangladeshi women are allowed to work whereas Pakistani women are restricted from working outside except in cities like Karachi and Lahore," he said, adding that Pakistan's business environment was sometimes disturbed by some regulatory agencies, which could only be appeased with bribes.
Pakistan's Textile Minister Mushtaq Ali Cheema believed that the country was not losing the position as its textile export registered a 17 percent increase in the first 11 months last year, with garment and bed-wear exports going up 48 percent and 14 percent respectively.
However, he added, the government was seeking long-term textile policies to provide the country's textile manufacturers a broader access to the international markets to facilitate further growth.
Meanwhile, the construction projects of "textile cities" in urban hubs like Karachi and Lahore have already been in the pipeline.