If Pakistan's textile industry is lucky, the new five-year textile policy will contain a financial package of over Rs 80 billion. This is aimed at giving a 100 per cent boost to exports and propping up the overall economy. The policy aims at developing the skills of workers, achieving higher per capita productivity and helping create three million jobs. It is also seeking to encourage the adoption of modern management practices for improving efficiency and reducing waste.

The textile sector will be made compliant especially with labor and environmental standards, domestically and internationally, and it will be encouraged to double value addition. The policy would facilitate an additional investment of $5 billion in machinery and technology and improve the fiber and product mix, especially in the garment industry. It would stress the use of technologies for better competitiveness of the entire textile value chain.

The textiles is the most important manufacturing sector of Pakistan. It has the longest production chain with the potential of value addition at each stage of processing from cotton ginning and spinning to fabric-making, dyeing, finishing and production of garments and other products. It contributes nearly one-fourth of industrial value addition, provides employment to about 40 per cent of the industrial workforce and has a eight per cent share in GDP.