All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Patron-in-Chief Gohar Ejaz has written a letter to the American ambassador in Islamabad requesting him to arrange loan of two billion dollars for Pakistan to import cotton, reported 24NewsHD TV channel on Sunday.
Gohar Ejaz also urged the US government to announce concessional loans for Pakistan’s textile industry.
Moreover, the US government should devise a strategy to provide easy credit for importing cotton from the US since the textile industry in Pakistan is facing a shortage of 10 million cotton bales this year due to country’s economic slowdown, the letter says.
Gohar Ejaz also mentioned that letters of credit (LCs) of textile industry were not being opened for cotton import.
Pakistan had imported cotton from the United States last year for a total of $1.48 billion and orders for 1.2 million bales of cotton import from US have been booked so far this year, he added.
In addition, the Patron-In-Chief of the APTMA stated that 3.5 million cotton bales from the US might be imported with a two-billion-dollar loan.
Reporter: Waqas Azeem