Full Stop On Gas Supply To Punjab Textile Industry

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Full Stop On Gas Supply To Punjab Textile Industry

Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) has suspended gas supply to Punjab’s textile mills indefinitely, the factory owners association confirmed. The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Punjab Chairman Aamir Fayyaz while addressing a press conference confirmed the same. He said that around 450 units of spinning, weaving and processing were being supplied gas just for four hours a day, which now has been halted completely. He informed that gas suspension to textile industry along with the failure of cotton crop in Punjab would further worsen the textile industry crisis in Pakistan. He further added that gas supply to textile mills in Punjab was 25 percent in November, which reduced to 17 percent in the last week and now SNGPL has suspended it completely by issuing a letter of zero supply. He said that Punjab textile industry consumes 60MMCFD, just 5 percent of 1,200MMCFD.

APTMA Punjab chairman observed that cotton arrival in November 2015 had dropped to just 5.1 million bales against 8.5 million bales of last year in Punjab, a decline of 40 percent. He added that both gas closure and decline in cotton arrival would have dire consequences on the operations of basic textile industry, which is already suffering due to the high cost of doing business. The growth indicators of the textile industry are in the red zone and some 200,000 jobs have already been lost in basic textile during the last two years in Punjab, as the government was focusing on building-up foreign exchange reserves through raising of funds from global investors or borrowed from international financial institutions, instead of strengthening textile industry to increase exports and earn foreign exchange to raise foreign reserves.