Asia Pacific represents the world’s largest as well as fastest growing region in textile printing production. By fabric type, apparel represents the largest fabric segment, while interior/ furnishings represent the fastest growing and second largest fabric segment for textile printing.

The substantial increase in exports from Pakistan for textile finishing products  in last financial year was due to the rising demand for value-added products in the international markets and improved quality of the fabrics, finishing and designing.

Pakistan textile industry contributes about 60% to the total export earnings of the country, accounts for 46% of the total manufacturing and provides employment to 38% of the manufacturing labour force. The availability of basic raw material for textile industry, cotton, has played a principal role in the growth of the industry. Pakistan is 4th largest producer and 3rd largest consumer of cotton. The textile and clothing industry will continue to be the driving force of Pakistan’s economic growth; as there is no substitute industry or service sector that has the potential to benefit the economy with foreign currency earnings and new jobs creation.

Pakistan’s textile industry had proved its strength in the global market during post-quota era by sustaining its position and growth. The availability of cheap labour and basic raw cotton as raw material for textile industry has played the principal role in the growth of the cotton textile industry in regime spear headed by the WTO.

With increased global competition, many sectors within the textile industry are increasing production efficiency. Research and innovations in technical textiles, yarn quality, clothing products, process performance, fabric finishing, coloration technology and marketing can bring significant advancement in textile sector and market supremacy.

Today’s textile printing technology  ensures precise and exact placing of prints on a garment, enables the manufacturers to decrease or increase the size of the print, modify the background tones, produce optical illusions, print advanced graphics, and offer the best translation of every single design.

Use of ultrasound and plasma technology in processing will be a major development in next decade, after enumerating a series of latest developments in processing and dyeing of textiles.

The textile machinery manufacturers worldwide are trying to develop their machines to improve not only quality, productivity and energy consumption, but attempt to make processing eco-friendly.

The processing involves preparatory, dyeing, printing and finishing. Textile processing occupies a predominant position in the entire textile value chain. A substantial cost is involved in conversion of grey fabrics into a dyed and finished fabrics. Recent recession in textile industry has further increased the demand for processing machinery with high productivity and low input cost.

Asia Pacific represents the world’s largest as well as fastest growing region in textile printing production as stated by the new market research report on Textile Printing sector. Asia Pacific accounts for more than half of the world textile printing production with China and India, the two most populous countries in the world.

In terms of fabric type and usage, apparel represents the largest fabric segment, while interior/ furnishings represent the fastest growing and second largest fabric segment for textile printing.

The digital printing market today is driven by technological advancements in inkjet printers such as direct-to-fabric sublimation printers. While, improvements in the print head technology are leading to increased nozzle density, which implies increased number of nozzles in each row. In addition, the market is influenced by the developments in textile applications including apparel and soft signage.

Dyes & chemicals: Textile industries use different chemicals in different processes like, dyeing, finishing, scouring, bleaching, softening, washing etc. During the past few decades the awareness regarding environmental problems has increased considerably and has become an important issue in the textile trade due to various environmental and health legislations, and also environmental policy is increasingly dictated through market forces. Many chemicals used in the textile industry cause environmental and health problems.

These problems may occur during the production process, with respect to emissions or occupational health problems. Other problems caused by these chemicals appear due to their presence in the final product. However, worldwide environmental problems associated with the textile industry are typically those associated with the water pollution caused by the discharge of untreated effluent and those because of use of toxic chemicals especially during processing. These chemicals can harm consumer if retained in the fabric.

Pakistan textile industry used various types of organic chemicals as per demand of buyers. Since grey fabric is not suited for making-up, the appropriate conditions for achieving the desired finished article properties must be created for the specific fabric and customer requirement.

These properties include colour, lustre,  touch, square meter-weight and stretch ability. There are numerous possibilities for after treatment and various techniques are applied depending on the composition of the  product and the customer’s requirements. Import of organic chemicals in to Pakistan is given in Table- 1 as above.

Production of cloth: The cloth is being produced in both mill and non-mill sectors, ranging from coarse to super varieties, with coarse and medium varieties consumed locally.

There are a large number of vertically integrated units, where production is controlled from fibre to the end product, and thus marketed abroad directly.

The production of cloth (mill sector) decreased from 1,107 million sq. meters in 208-09 to 1,010 million sq. meters in 2010-11, thus showing decline of 1%. Out of total cloth production during 2010-11 in mill sector, 56% produced in grey form, 30% dyed and printed, 8% blended and 6% bleached. 

Category-wise production of cloth (mill-sector) is given in Table-2 on the previous page.

The industry is desperately in the need of newer and very efficient dyeing/finishing and functional treatments of textiles. There is growing awareness and readiness to adapt new perspective on industrial up gradation of Cleaner Production Programme, such new technologies help enterprises achieve green production and cost reduction at the same time. Green production has become necessary for enterprises under the upgrade and transformation policy. Therefore, there is an urgent need to promote new technologies in textile dyeing and finishing, injecting new thoughts to the industry.

Export of cotton fabrics: The global trade in woven fabrics can be classified into two broad categories, cotton and blended fabrics and synthetic/artificial fabrics, commonly referred to as man-made fabrics. Asia is fast emerging as major source of exports, especially of textiles, to the USA, EU and other countries of the world. Pakistan has emerged as one of the major cotton textile product suppliers in the world market. Pakistan's textile products have become less competitive in the international market owing to tough competition from Bangladesh, India and China.

Export of cotton fabrics increased from 1.787 billion sq meters worth US $ 1.80 billion in 2009-10 to 2.29 billion sq meters worth US $ 2.56 billion in 2010-11, thus showing an increase of 42% in terms of value. Table-3 shows export of cotton fabrics.

Export of textile finished products: The country exported textile commodities worth $13.80 billion in July-June period of the 2010-11 fiscal year’s against $10.22 billion in the same period of fiscal year 2009-10, thus showing an increase of 35%. The handsome increase in textile exports in last financial year was due to the rising demand for low value-added products and cotton prices in the international markets and improving the quality of the fabrics, finishing and designing. Export of textile finished products from Pakistan is given in Table-4.

Challenges

Due to damage to the cotton crop as a result of rains, before the floods Pakistan was expecting a bumper crop of 16 million bales. According to estimates, the rains have destroyed approximately 1.5 to 2 million bales leaving a short fall of about 1.5 million bales in comparison to last year; therefore, the country will not be able to export its cotton production, however, it is sufficient to fulfil the local requirements.

The shortage of gas and electricity has forced many textile firms to shut down their export oriented operations since they cannot compete with global rivals situated in countries like China with much better infrastructure or Vietnam and Bangladesh, with  lower input costs.

Therefore, the rising cost of production coupled with high interest rate, is the big factor in making the products uncompetitive. The textile industry being an export oriented industry cannot pass on the high costs of borrowing to buyers.

During last fiscal year, textile sector did not make borrowings for expansion and new projects, but borrowed limited to working capital which was reflected in increased exports.

During July-August, 2011 the textile sector’s borrowings fell to Rs 484 billion from Rs 514 billion in June 2011. In the sub-sectors, borrowing for spinning fell from Rs 228 billion to Rs 206 billion while borrowing for weaving fell to Rs 88 billion from Rs 92 billion and finishing to Rs 75 from Rs 77 billion during the first two months. Made-up textile articles also fell to Rs 44 billion in August from Rs 48 billion in June, 2011.

The current non-performing loans amount to Rs 600 billion, which in the event of unresponsiveness by the government are likely to increase sharply in near future. On the other hand due to shortage of gas and electricity textile industry  - from spinning and weaving to value-added garments and made-ups and home textile units has begun downsizing their workforce. The industry is laying off part of its workforce from skilled and semi-skilled labour to junior and mid-career marketing and sales executives to cut the costs and reduce their losses.

Pakistan has quality and technological advantage in spinning, weaving, dyeing and finishing. Recently, the weaving industry in mill sector has been producing sophisticated quality fabrics in line with the ever increasing overseas demand of quality fabrics. In this context, fabrics made from superior cotton from Pakistan are distinguished for their quality, texture, lustrous colour and rich combination of designs and competitive prices. Therefore, improving the quality of the fabrics, finishing and designing can develop value-added  garments, knitwear and specialized textiles sector further, which will add value to its over exports portfolio which nowadays relies mostly on yarn exports.