All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), NWFP Chapter, has demanded the Provincial Government to provide a level-playing field to the textile units by giving them electricity at reduced subsidy rates to overcome higher transportation cost. The Association has observed that the provincial government could bring down the rate of unemployment by creating thousands of new jobs in fulfilment of its policy initiative to reduce poverty by organising the textile sector on solid footings.

The Provincial government can do a lot to promote labour-intensive textile industry and provincial economy will progress resulting in economic benefit for multiple segments of society, said APTMA NWFP Chairman Afan Aziz. The Province lacks raw material which gives impression that the NWFP-based textile mills have no future, still textile mills set up in the Gadoon Amanzai industrial estate, if put together, housed the highest number of spindles (more than 500,000) installed in a single industrial estate of the country.

The fact that the Gadoon Amanzai industrial estate housed the highest number of spindles in itself speaks volumes of the prospects the province boasts for the textile sector given the Provincial government comes up with incentives. The incentives would not only create level-playing field but would also encourage new investment in the province. The government, under a long-term plan should undertake policy measures to promote cotton cultivation which would partly resolve the issue of non-availability of raw material. If non-cotton producing Bangladesh can export readymade garments six times higher than Pakistan, then NWFP also stands equally better chances to take benefit of the textile sector by utilising its natural resources to its own benefit.