By SKM
June 19, 2026
LAHORE: All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) fully extended its support to the Government’s objective of increasing documentation, curbing tax evasion, and improving the tax-to-GDP ratio. However, any framework to address gol-maal of cotton must be practical, evidence-based, and applied at the correct point of the supply chain.
This was stated by Mr. Kamran Arshad Chairman APTMA while addressing a press conference along with Mr. Asad Shafi Chairman North, Syed Ali Ahsan, Abdul Rahim Nasir Former Chairmen APTMA, Senior Executives Mr. Muhammad Ali Ch., Mr. Haroon Ellahi, Mr. Raza Baqir Secretary General and Mr. Tahir Basharat Cheema Energy Advisor.
Chairman APTMA highly criticized certain remarks by chairman FBR regarding the alleged loss of revenue in textile spinning sector in the absence of installation of video monitoring system in textile mills. He said that APTMA has never opposed adoption of modern technology to monitor collection of taxes and urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to reconsider the proposed installation of cameras in spinning units only and instead implement a comprehensive national cotton traceability system across the full value chain, beginning from the ginning sector.
Regarding the quantum of revenue loss as alleged by the chairman FBR in a television interview, he clarified that his assumptions are totally false, baseless and unfounded, which shows his total ignorance about the factual market data. He added that the alleged sales tax evasion of Rs. 500–700 billion on around 1.5 million cotton bales, implies a value of roughly Rs. 1.8 million to Rs. 2.6 million per bale, which is commercially impossible. The prevailing value of a cotton bale is approximately Rs. 85,000–90,000, several orders of magnitude lower. Such figures therefore require urgent correction to avoid policy decisions based on mathematically impossible assumptions.
Kamran Arshad said that cotton first enters the formal supply chain at the ginning stage, where raw cotton produced in farms is converted into bales. Any undocumented movement, leakage, or “gol maal” of cotton, if any, originates at this stage, not at spinning mills, which never produces cotton but only procure and process cotton bales as already received from ginneries.
Chairman APTMA appreciated FBR’s broader drive to deploy technology and video analytics to improve compliance. He said that the Association’s position is not against documentation or monitoring; rather, it is that monitoring must begin where it can actually be effective.
Installing surveillance equipment at an intermediary stage such as spinning would neither address the source of undocumented cotton nor prevent leakages already occurring before bales reach mills. It may instead divert enforcement away from the real point of non-compliance and increase the burden on documented manufacturers.
Kamran Arshad reiterated APTMA’s full support to the government increasing Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio, but stressed that sustainable taxation requires productive economic activity. In the current environment, documented businesses are already facing extremely high effective tax burdens, severe liquidity constraints, high energy costs, and repeated compliance interventions. When exporters, for example, are subjected to effective tax rates of over 60-70 percent, economic activity is discouraged, investment is delayed, exports weaken, and tax collection ultimately suffers.
Pakistan cannot take its way to growth by further burdening the already documented and compliant sectors. The priority must be to support productive activity, restore competitiveness, expand exports, and bring untaxed and informal segments of the economy into the tax net. A broader tax base, not heavier pressure on existing taxpayers, is the only sustainable route to higher revenues.
APTMA therefore calls on the Government to withdraw or suitably revise the current approach and prescribe a fresh procedure starting the installation of monitoring system from the ginning level and gradually extending to the entire value added chain. Such a system would promote transparency, protect fiscal integrity, and ensure that enforcement is directed where the risk of undocumented cotton actually arises.
He said that APTMA remains committed to working with FBR, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, and all stakeholders to design a practical, transparent, and technology-enabled cotton traceability framework that strengthens documentation without undermining industrial activity, exports, or investment. Ends
