Commenting over the gas prices, Asghar Ali, Chairman and Muhammad Asif, Vice Chairman Pakistan Textile Exporters Association(PTEA) said that Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority's (Ogra)decision would badly affect the industry as it was already facing immense problems.
Jacking up gas prices would further paralyse the industries, which were already struggling for survival due to energy crisis, liquidity crunch, and other challenges confronting them, they said. They further said that government should cut the number of taxes on gas, as fuel is the engine of growth. If the fuel is heavily taxed then the entire economy would suffer and the same is happening in Pakistan as the repeated increases in gas prices had ruined the industrial and economic activities.
To keep the economic cycle well on track, the government would have to shelve the decision to increase gas prices, they demanded. Because of high cost of doing business in Pakistan, a large number of industrial units had already shifted their operations to other countries and the recent decision would force more industrialists to follow the suit, they maintained. Gas prices for industrial sector in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka were lower than Pakistan.
In Pakistan, gas prices were higher of Rs 235 per unit from Bangladesh and Rs 165 from Sri Lanka. Asghar Ali was of the view that textile sector was already facing severe loadshedding of gas resulting in decline in textile exports. Gas supply to industrial sector has been reduced by 329 percent in last four years.
Explaining, he said that gas supply suspended for 41 days in 2008-09 which increased to 175 days in 2011-12. In 2009-10, gas supply suspended for 95 days and in 2010-11 it was closed for 136 days. Quoting the statistics, he said that the product-wise details showed that knitwear exports went down by 7.11 percent in quantity terms in July-October period of the ongoing fiscal year, bed wear exports decreased by 13.40 percent and made-up articles were down by 1.04 percent in July-October period of 2012-13 against the same period of outgoing fiscal.
Meanwhile, Syed Zia Alumdar Hussain, Vice Chairman Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association North Zone strongly protested against Ogra decision to hike in gas tariff from January 2013 as it would not only kill the industry but will also create law and order situation in the country due to unemployment.