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Pakistan Businesses Need More Than Dollars

   Ira Mellman 05 October 2010

Photo: ASSOCIATED PRESS

   Pakistani worker at a textile factory in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

   Pakistanâs  power  looms  are still turning, sewing machines are still
   stitching  as the country continues to turn out textiles that had been
   providing  a  livelihood for more than 10 million farming families and
   accounting for almost 40 percent of its industrial employment.
   But  the  massive  floods  that  wiped  out  thousands  of  farms have
   curtailed the raw cotton supply. Expectations are that the reduced raw
   material  could  lead  to  a  30%  reduction  in the production of bed
   sheets,  clothes and other goods that are sent to consumers around the
   world.
   Pakistan  has  been receiving millions of dollars in international aid
   following  the  floods,  however Aftab Ahmed, the Secretary General of
   the Pakistan Textile Exporters Association says it is not cash that is
   needed in this case.

   Ahmed  said  "Immediate  help  not  in cash but in trade. The European
   countries,  the  USA,  they  can  help  us out with granting immediate
   market access and duty free concession to our exportable goods."
   But  the  economic slowdown in Europe and America poses a problem. The
   European  Union has agreed to some tariff cuts on Pakistani goods, but
   they  are  temporary.  In  the  United  States, there is a move in the
   legislature  to  create  what  are  called âreconstruction opportunity
   zonesâ  in  Pakistan.  These  would  provide  lower  tariffs and trade
   preferences in Pakistanâs violence ridden northwest. But that would do
   little  to  help the textile industry, which is centered in Pakistanâs
   southern regions. Even that legislation is stalled in the US Senate as
   the  US unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent. Such proposals are
   also   drawing  opposition  from  the  American  textile  and  apparel
   industries,  which  have  reportedly  lost  more than a third of their
   workforce since 2004.
   Pakistani  business  leaders, like Chudry Waheed Raamay of the council
   of  Loom  Owners  in  the  Pakistani  city  of  Faisalabad,  say it is
   particularly galling in light of his countryâs cooperation with the US
   in  routing  out  militants.  Raamay  reasoned "Pakistan deserves more
   because  we  are  the ally of America in the war against terror and we
   have  lost  billions  of rupees and thousands of lives in this war and
   this is the time when they should support our economy."
   Other  Pakistani  business  leaders  say  continuing violence in their
   country is simply bad for business.

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