–Many export orders have been cancelled, says Bilwani
KARACHI: Leading textile industrialist and exporter Jawed Bilwani has said that although industrialists and exporters support the Sindh government‘s efforts to control the spread of COVID-19 in the province, the strategy made in this regard should have been based on representation and feedback from the business community of the port city.
Bilwani, who is the Chief Coordinator of Council of Textile Associations of Pakistan (CTAP, was talking to APP here on Saturday.
Bilwani maintained that the sudden lockdown enforced by the provincial government had put the industrial and trading community, mainly exporters, at the risk of a financial loss in billions of rupees.
“Due to one-sided decisions of the Sindh government, there was zero industrial and trading activity in Karachi and other cities and towns of the province. There are more than 15,000 industries related to different sectors in Karachi; the majority of these are export-oriented. Because of the lockdown, no worker could reach factories which lead to a pause of stock of goods in the manufacturing process. The raw materials and semi-finished goods worth billions of rupees would go to waste if we don’t manufacture goods in the required time,” he added.
“For non-shipment of goods, export orders and letters of credit (L/Cs) were being cancelled. This would prove a big setback to the country’s exports as the foreign buyers would divert to other countries—many of them depart once for all,” he further added.
The business leader was of the view that if the government had taken the business community on board, there could be made some safe arrangements for workers’ movement to at least keep only those industrial units running which were of essential nature and export-oriented.
And, he continued, the timely shipment of export goods could be done after taking preventive measures needed for the safety of the workers from COVID-19 pandemic.
“If the government gave us a grace period of some days before imposing lockdown, we would have finished our urgent jobs like under process manufacturing of goods and make shipments of ready goods. It would have saved cancellation of many export orders and L/Cs,” he remarked.
Bilwani said that due to the ban on movement, it had become impossible to distribute salaries among the workers as well. Also, he added, the business community wants to give ration to their low paid workers to manage this difficult situation created by COVID-19.
On this occasion, he urged that like in case of natural gas, the government come up with a separate subsidised tariff for five zero-rated export sectors.
He concluded with the suggestion that instead of fixing April 10 as the last date for paying electricity bills of March, consumers should be allowed more time as most of them have lost their affordability under the lockdown.
