All the textile processing, printing, dying units and hosiery factories remained closed on Saturday. Thousands of industrial units in the city, comprising hosiery manufacturers, dyeing and bleaching units, sizing units and calendaring and printing mills, using gas as a major processing component, were closed down on Friday.
Exporters have already been hurt by abrupt discontinuation of the R & D support facility provided by the government to buttress the declining export trend. The R&D support facility had helped sustain the export to some extent, said Chairman of Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) Tahir Ishaque Bharara.
Had there been no R&D support, the decline in export would have been of large dimensions, he added. Meanwhile, thousands of workers loitered aimlessly on streets in Khurrianwala industrial belt and Sargodha Road industrial estate because of the lockout of the protesting mills. Managerial and office staff also stayed away from their offices.
Some of the exporting units could not meet deadline of export orders. They were under great pressure to complete their in-process material and to dispatch it, but they closed their manufacturing facility and joined the protest. The textile industry and exporters reiterated their firm resolve to continue protest till the withdrawal of 31 percent gas price hike and continuation of R&D facility across the board without discrimination.
Faisalabad Dry Port Trust Chairman and former President of Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry Sheikh Ashfaq Ahmed have expressed concern over the closure of hundreds of textile and hosiery units in Faisalabad.
They demanded of the government to immediately withdraw this exorbitant increase in the gas and power rates, and added that due to shutdown of these units, the exporters would not be in a position to export textile goods to various foreign destinations in time and there would be a colossal financial loss not only to exporters, but also to the government.
Talking to newsmen here on Saturday, Sheikh Ashfaq Ahmed said that owing to closure of textile units here for the last two days, over one million workers had become jobless and it was indeed a very alarming situation.
He said that the Presidents of Lahore, Gujranwala, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Sheikhupura, and Sialkot chambers of commerce and industry and the trade bodies of these cities had endorsed the just demands of the textile sector of Faisalabad.
They announced that in case their demands were not met by July 15, all textiles, hosiery and power loom units in these cities would also go on strike from July 18 for indefinite period. He said that industrialists and exporters of textile sector of Faisalabad had so far avoided to stop work and tried their best to settle the issue of gas and electricity tariff hike through negotiations, but no heed was paid to their genuine problems.
He added that since the mill owners and exporters were law-abiding citizens and would still try to settle the issue amicably, the government should, therefore, not ignore the proposals of textile sector and announce a "relief package" for textile industry immediately.
They are of the view that the cost of doing business was increasing day by day and the foreign buyers find the prices of Pakistani textile goods were costlier than the goods from India, China and Bangladesh.
As a result, they were diverting their purchase order to these countries. The exporters out-rightly rejected 31 percent gas hike, and demanded restoration of R&D facility to the exporters without any discrimination. They said that R&D facility was not a subsidy, but it was a compensation of the duties and taxes paid by the exporters. They also rejected the volume-based R&D, and said it would wipe out the small and medium exporters and create monopoly of a few big exporters.