Garment factory fire kills over 300

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

It's so tragic and even more horrendous is the thought that nothing will be learnt from it. No building in Pakistan has ny emergency measures in place.

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Guppies who live and work in Karachi, please let us know the situation of fire safety at your workplaces.

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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

sab theek lagta hai, jab tak koi bahir se lock kar ke aag na lagae :(

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Three years of work experience in Pakistan - apart of one multinational companies and one foreign bank , I have seen no other place having safe assembling points in care of fire , fire drills , bloody fire wardens , staff trained for encountering such incidents ...

And the funny thing is , for a government institution , I was once asked to design a data center , I visited that place and found out that their present NOC room had no fire exit ...

koi bat'la oo k hum bat'laa'ain kiya :)

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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

and opposition leader PML n Ch. Nisaar was all over the media busy in his same tactics, throwing mud on journalists and other people.

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govt officials ko pehlai tou yad nai aaya but now they are all coming out after 3 days. don't understand the president visited the wounded in lahore's fire , and but he didnt get time to go and visit wounded in the karachi's fire? Idiots, only busy in their sick politics.

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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

:(

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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

one of the survivor said, usually the doors always remained open, it was strange, how the gates got closed on that day.

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So is this going to turn out to be a terrorist mass murder ?

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Aren't garment exporters sell their merchandize locally?

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Could you please clarify this? Are you saying that the gov't automatically deducts tax from any money that is deposited to your account by a foreign buyer?

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That's correct.. In this case presumptive tax is collected from export proceeds irrespective of the concerns final financial results. Even in case of loss this tax is minimum Income tax liability as well as maximum discharge of Income tax liability.. so the question of tax evasion by exporting concerns does not arise..

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All export proceeds are deducted for presumptive tax at source.. local sales are assessed separately.. in most of the cases these local sales are over runs or rejections in case of export oriented garment concerns which are sold much below cost with a huge loss..

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Huge loss and paki businessman

Not to pay taxes showing huge loss eh. isay kehtay hain jhoot ke paon kahan.

By the way how much is the rejection? Quality of merchandize from Pakistan is not good as compared to Bangladesh, China, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia, Malaysia etc.

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I dont know in which world you live in. Textile industry of Pakistan is much better than Bangladesh (which gets preferential treatment from Western Countries) but the policies of the present regime are killing it. Last year Faisalabad which is the hub of textile industry was without electricity and gas. How can you expect industry to run without power? The bigger industrialists can run their mills with their diesel generators (but that increases the production costs). What about smaller industrialists?

At the end of the day its all number games, the world will get the merchandise from where they can get it on time and cheaper. In this scenario Pakistan loses out.

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^^^

What this has to do with quality?

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^ bhai jaan, was the quality much better 6 years ago than today?

Pakistan

**Chairman All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) Ahsan Bashir said that six years ago Pakistan’s exports of textiles were much higher than that of Bangladesh, which currently is way ahead of Pakistan; by a margin of about 7 billion dollars.
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He said that in 2004-05, all creditable textile experts termed Pakistan as the most lucrative place for investment in textiles. “Six years down the lane textile investment in Pakistan has dried up completely” he said.

He said the policy makers should do some soul searching as to why this country failed to attain its true potential in the textile sector. “Leave aside Bangladesh, which enjoys special market access in the developed world but China and India have increased their textile exports with the same market access issues as being faced by Pakistan,” he said.

He wondered whether it was it the far sightedness of Indian and Chinese planners or the shortsightedness of Pakistani planners and the failure of local entrepreneurs.

**Leading spinner S M Tanveer said that entrepreneurs in China, India and Bangladesh did not experience the drawbacks faced by their Pakistani counterparts. He said the textile industry in Pakistan faced regular shortages of raw materials like cotton and polyester during the past six years.

Bank mark up, he added, remained the highest in Pakistan during this period, which in some years was double than that in competing economies.

Tanveer said shortage of energy had hit the industry three years ago, which is increasing with the passage of time. He said infrastructure issues have also remained unresolved in the past six years as the government, due to high non development expenditures, does not spare resources for development.

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Re: Garment factory fire kills over 300

where as this is the situation of textile industry in Pakistan.

Textile industry:

**FAISALABAD: Faced with a chronic energy crisis in Pakistan, many textile manufacturers in Faisalabad – the country’s textile hub – are voting with their feet and moving their manufacturing units to Bangladesh.
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**For its part, Bangladesh has been offering a lot of incentives, including uninterrupted power supply (at cheaper rates than in Pakistan), tax-free status for the first ten years and tariff-free access to markets in the European Union.
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**These incentives have convinced many Pakistani businessmen to invest heavily in Bangladesh. Salamat Ali, the owner of Tauseef Enterprises, for instance has already invested Rs300 million in setting up a textile factory in Bangladesh. Others, like K&M Textile, are considering doing so.
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**“The cost of doing business in Pakistan is very high,” said Rana Ghulam Irtiza, coordination manager at Tauseef Enterprises.
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**Irtiza says that, in addition to cheaper and more reliable electricity, labour costs in Bangladesh are cheaper and the workers tend to be more efficient. The per capita income in Bangladesh is about half that of Pakistan’s $1,250.
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Profit margins in Bangladesh tend to be around 30% higher for textile exporters than in Pakistan, according to Irtiza.

Some firms that have requirements for more well-qualified labour have even thought of moving as far afield as the United States, where labour costs may be higher but it is easier to find skilled labour. Javed Ahmed, a manager at K&M Textile, a composite manufacturer, said his company was considering such a move.

**He added that international buyers are increasingly reluctant to place orders with firms located in Pakistan because they fear that the electricity shortage will result in delays, an unacceptable business risk for many retailers that rely on a “just-in-time” business model.
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Another huge attraction in Bangladesh is the lack of tariffs in major markets such as the United States and the European Union. Classified as a “Least Developed Country”, Bangladesh has been given special tariff-free access to markets in developed countries as an indirect form of aid.

Mian Farrukh, the owner of Cosy International, a composite textile manufacturer, said that the tariff-free access was the single biggest factor in his decision to set up business in Bangladesh.

**Farrukh added that the fact that electricity is around 35% cheaper in Bangladesh was also an added incentive for his company to move.
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Bangladesh’s textile industry has made such an impact on the global map that international buying houses have created their offices there, forcing many Pakistani manufacturers to travel to Dhaka to get orders for goods destined for markets around the world.

It is not known precisely how many industrialists have moved their factories to Bangladesh and how many have simply opened up additional manufacturing units there. Yet the trend is clearly worrying to many observers, who fear a mass exodus of Pakistan’s textile manufacturing base, which in turn would be devastating for the millions of people currently employed by the sector.

“The government of Pakistan needs to formulate a comprehensive policy to salvage the textile industry,” said Mushtaq Ali Cheema, who was the textile minister during the Musharraf administration, and is the owner of MSC Textiles.

“Exporters and manufacturers are really disappointed with the way the government has handled their industry,” added Cheema. “Instead of thinking about creating new provinces, the government should focus on enhancing the country’s competitiveness. Otherwise, our industry will run away to Bangladesh.”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18th, 2011.

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Apparently raja sahib was kind enough to visit the site but only through air. Hawa hi se chale gaye...

Bari meherbani sir.. Itna takalluf bhi Kyun kiya?

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Apparently he came to verify the location. Google map probably did not have good resolution available.