ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The federal government approved Rs 185 million under Export Development Fund (EDF) for the development of textile sector in the country.
The meeting of EDF was held here under the chairmanship of Secretary Ministry of Textile Industry which approved various development projects for promotion of textile sector and boost its exports.
Later talking to the state-run news agency, a senior official of Ministry of Textile Industry said in allocations of Rs 100 million has been approved for washing facilities in Karachi garments institute while Rs 75 million was also approved by the EDF for land acquisition of new training institute in Sialkot and also was allocated Rs 10 million for garment training institute in Lahore.
He said the production of up to 11.2 million bales of cotton was expected in this crop season as compared to 10 million bales produced in the same period of previous year.
He said the selling price of cotton seeds was also decreased from Rs 3,200 to Rs 3,000 per 40-KG in order to encourage farmers to cultivate cotton crops on more land and enhance the cotton production in this season.
The senior official said the experts and scientists helped in providing training to more than 8,000 farmers to overcome losses of cotton crops and evolved measures against the virus which harmed the cotton crops in the past.
This year, he said farmers were likely to get good prices for the cotton crop as the increased cotton prices in international market would benefit farmers as compared to previous years when they suffered huge financial losses.
He, however, said the government had set the target of 14.1 million bales of cotton for this year which had to be revised as some of the growers in cotton producing areas opted to cultivate sugarcane crop.
