Dr Gohar Ejaz Group has swept the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) Annual Elections for 2022/23 for the 14th consecutive year.
In a press conference at the APTMA House, Lahore addressed by Dr Gohar Ejaz, patron-in-chief of APTMA, Raza Baqir, secretary general, announcing the election results declared that Rehman Naseem, Zahid Rasheed Khawja, Syed Ali Ahsan, S M Tanveer, Hamid Zaman, Shaiq Jawed, Muhammad Anees Khawaja, Asad Shafi, Amanullah Kassim, Imran Maqbool, Muhammad Junaid, Naveed Ahmed, Zahid Mazhar and Zohair Dilawar Agha have been elected unopposed as the members of the Central Executive Committee of APTMA.
Baqir announcing results of the zonal elections declared that Hamid Zaman has been elected as the chairman, Kamran Arshad as senior vice chairman; Khwaja Muhammad Anees as vice chairman; Asad Shafi, treasurer and Haroon Shahzada Ellahi Shaikh, Omar Latif Chaudhry, Umair Abid, S M Nabeel, Muhammad Ali Chaudhry, Ahsan Shahid Warraich, Shahroze Ahmad, Haroon Shahid and Sufyan Akhtar have been elected as the members of Zonal Managing Committee.
Dr Gohar Ejaz congratulated his group members for securing an unprecedented 14th consecutive victory in the elections both at the Centre and zonal levels.
He felicitated the newly-elected members of Central and Zonal Managing Committees and the office-bearers of Northern Zone on their election.
He expressed the hope that the newly-elected leadership would work hard to strengthen the export potential of the textile industry.
Gohar said that textile exports of the country were stagnant at $12 to $13 billion till 2018/19, owing to multiple issues, especially high energy tariff and unavailability of energy for the textile industry.
Consequent to hectic efforts made by his group, the government approved the regionally competitive energy tariff for the export-oriented sectors both for electricity and gas, he said, adding that the energy tariff costs not more than 2.67 per cent to the country but contributed to expanding the textile exports to $19.33 billion during 2021/22, registering a growth of 26 per cent over the preceding year and over 54 per cent in the short span of three years.
According to Gohar, the new investment of $5 billion has been made in the textile sector, which has now potential to give exponential growth to the textile exports provided business-friendly environment continued to be extended to the textile and other export-oriented sectors.
With the view to foster exports and boost up the economy, he unveiled his vision for future economy and announced efforts to make $50 billion exports by moving to the stitching sector and conversion of $3 billion yarn and fabrics of the country into the value-added garments for exports, fetching exports of $10 billion.
Gohar also announced establishing Garment Training Centre under the auspices of APTMA to train manpower for employment in vast expanding garment sector.
