Pakistan’s textile industry ranks amongst the top in the world. Pakistan is World’s fourth largest cotton producer and the third largest consumer of the same. Cotton based textiles contribute over 60% to the total exports, accounts for 46% of the total manufacturing and provide employment to 38% manufacturing labor force. The availability of cheap labor and basic raw cotton as raw material for textile industry has played the principal role in the growth of the Cotton Textile Industry in Pakistan. The textile sector enjoys a pivotal position in the exports of Pakistan. In Asia, Pakistan is the 8th largest exporter of textile products. The contribution of this industry to the total GDP is 8.5%. It provides employment to about 15 million people, 38% of the country work force of about 49million. The annual volume of total world textile trade is US$18 trillion which is growing at 2.5 percent. Out of it, Pakistan’s share is less than one percent.

The industry made an investment of approx. $ 6.0 Billion during the period 1999-2006. Textile Machinery worth $.0.8 billion has been imported during 2005-06 (see Table below). The major investment has been made in spinning, Weaving, Textile Processing and making up sectors. Approx. 454,000 new direct jobs have been created and industry has been able to make increase production and exports. Import of textile machinery, which is the single largest item in the machinery group, accounted for $ 771.500 million in 2005-06. This shows that investment for modernization of textile industry, which started four years ago, still continues. This resulted into substantial increase in capacities of all products. Consequently, yarn production has increased by 12% and cloth production by 7%. The exports showed positive improvements and cotton textile export grew from $ 9.20 billion in 2004-05 to $ 10.37 billion in 2005-06 and is expected to exceed $12 billion in 2006-07.