Pakistan Textile Council (PTC) has warned that the country’s textile and apparel sector is approaching a critical breaking point, with mass layoffs and factory shutdowns becoming an imminent risk due to persistently high costs of doing business and weakening export momentum.
While overall textile and apparel exports stood at $7.84 billion during July–November FY26, reflecting a modest 2.8% increase over the same period last year, this growth masks deep structural stress across key segments of the value chain, Pakistan Textile Council (PTC) Chairman Fawad Anwar said Sunday. “Headline growth figures conceal a worrying slowdown, particularly visible in monthly trends and traditional textile categories,” he said.
Exports in November 2025 declined to $1.43 billion, registering a 2.7% year-on-year drop and a sharp 11.7% month-on-month decline compared to October 2025. According to Anwar, this contraction reflects rising cost pressures that exporters are unable to pass on to international buyers.
He highlighted that traditional textiles, comprising raw materials and semi-processed goods, declined by 7.7% during July–November FY26, falling to $1.28 billion from $1.38 billion last year. In November alone, traditional textile exports dropped 18.5% year-on-year and 8% month-on-month, underscoring stress at the upstream level of the industry.
While apparel and made-up textile exports reached $6.56 billion during July–November FY26, showing a 5% increase over last year, Anwar cautioned that momentum has weakened sharply in recent months. Apparel exports declined marginally by 0.5% year-on-year in November and fell 13% month-on-month, signaling erosion of competitiveness even in Pakistan’s strongest export segments.
The PTC chairman further pointed to declining performance within top export product lines. In home textiles (Chapter 63), exports of cotton bed linen and bed covers recorded notable declines compared to last year. Similarly, in knitted apparel (Chapter 61), exports of knitted T-shirts and gloves weakened, while woven apparel (Chapter 62) saw a sharp fall in cotton men’s suits, jackets, trousers, and related ensembles, declining significantly during July–November FY26.
“These figures clearly show that exporters are not losing orders due to inefficiency, but because policy-imposed costs have made production commercially unviable,” he stated. “High energy tariffs, unreliable supply, expensive financing, and a heavy, cascading tax regime are steadily eroding Pakistan’s competitiveness in global markets,” chairman PTC added.
He emphasized that tight monetary conditions, high interest rates, and limited access to affordable working capital have stalled investment in modernization and capacity expansion, while delayed refunds and multiple layers of taxation have further squeezed margins. “Global buyers do not compensate suppliers for domestic policy distortions,” he added. Warning of broader economic fallout, Anwar cautioned that without urgent corrective action, Pakistan risks permanent loss of export orders, widespread job losses, and shutdown of industrial units across the textile value chain. Calling for immediate government intervention, he stressed that restoring competitiveness requires urgent reduction in energy costs, easing of interest rates, rationalization of taxation, and an exchange rate aligned with market fundamentals.
