By SKM
May 21, 2026
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s ambitious cotton revival plan — approved at the highest political level by a committee headed by Muhammad Ishaq Dar — has effectively been pushed into cold storage by bureaucratic inertia, with the country’s powerful textile sector warning that official red-tapism may already have doomed yet another cotton season.
In a blistering letter sent to Ishaq Dar on May 20, 2026, Mr. Kamran Arshad, Chairman of All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), accused government ministries and departments of failing to implement even a single major reform decision approved during the 6th meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Essential/Cash Crops held on October 22, 2025 under the Deputy Prime Minister’s chairmanship.
Despite repeated reminders over several months, “no concrete measures have yet been initiated in any of the areas,” APTMA told the Deputy Prime Minister, effectively signaling that the government’s much-publicized cotton revival initiative exists only on paper.
The industry body warned that because of the prolonged bureaucratic delays, Pakistan had already missed the critical cotton sowing window, raising the specter of another disastrous crop cycle that could force the country into billions of dollars worth of cotton imports at a time when foreign exchange reserves remain under severe pressure.
The sharply worded correspondence reflects growing anger within Pakistan’s largest export-oriented industry, which now believes that entrenched bureaucratic resistance inside the federal machinery is actively sabotaging reforms approved through political consensus at the highest level.
“The continued non-implementation of the approved roadmap is causing serious concern within the cotton sector and undermining the national objective of cotton revival,” APTMA wrote while urging Ishaq Dar to personally intervene before the entire initiative collapses.
The controversy centers around a sweeping reform package unanimously approved during the October 2025 committee meeting attended by federal ministries, provincial governments, seed-sector representatives, researchers, and textile industry stakeholders.
The official minutes, issued by the Ministry of National Food Security & Research, show that the committee had agreed on a major institutional restructuring aimed at rescuing Pakistan’s rapidly deteriorating cotton economy.
Key decisions included transforming the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) into a new Pakistan Cotton Advisory Council (PCAC), establishing an industry-led governance structure with majority private-sector representation, transferring cotton cess collection to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), and earmarking 70 percent of cess revenues exclusively for cotton research and development.
The Deputy Prime Minister had also directed officials to finalize the institutional mechanism “at the earliest” in order to restore confidence in Pakistan’s collapsing cotton sector.
Yet more than six months later, none of the major structural reforms appear to have moved beyond official paperwork.
No notification for the operationalization of PCAC has been issued. No mechanism for FBR-led cess collection has been finalized. No legal amendments have been introduced. No industry-led governance body has been constituted. And no implementation roadmap has been shared with stakeholders.
APTMA’s letters portray a picture of extraordinary administrative paralysis, where even decisions endorsed through cabinet-level consensus appear unable to move through the bureaucracy.
In a previous letter dated March 12, 2026 addressed to Rana Tanveer Hussain, APTMA had already warned that the government was rapidly running out of time to implement the reforms before the cotton sowing season.
The association reminded the ministry that officials had assured implementation during a January 29 meeting, yet “no concrete action, notification, or implementation roadmap” was ever provided.
APTMA warned at the time that failure to operationalize the approved framework before sowing would effectively render the cotton revival strategy “unachievable for the upcoming season.”
But even that warning failed to trigger meaningful movement within the system.
As frustration intensified, APTMA sent another strongly worded reminder on May 5, 2026, cautioning that the delay was “fraught with gross national loss,” particularly as sowing had already begun in several parts of the country.
The association accused authorities of failing to initiate even basic implementation measures despite repeated commitments and the passage of considerable time after formal approval of the decisions.
The developments have once again exposed the chronic governance failures surrounding Pakistan’s cotton economy, which has steadily deteriorated over the past decade due to policy inconsistency, weak research systems, poor seed regulation, climate pressures, pest attacks, and institutional dysfunction.
Ironically, many of these failures were openly acknowledged by government officials themselves during the October 2025 meeting.
According to the official minutes, the Secretary of the Ministry of National Food Security admitted that the poor performance of PCCC was primarily caused by severe financial shortages, noting that cotton cess rates had remained unchanged since 2011.
The committee had subsequently endorsed APTMA’s proposal for cess collection through the FBR specifically to strengthen research funding and improve institutional efficiency.
However, industry officials now fear that the reform process itself has become another casualty of bureaucratic turf battles and administrative lethargy.
For Pakistan’s textile sector, the stakes are enormous.
Cotton remains the backbone of the country’s textile exports, which are among Pakistan’s largest sources of foreign exchange earnings and employment. Continued decline in domestic cotton production has already forced the industry to increasingly rely on imported cotton, exposing the economy to external price shocks and additional pressure on dollar reserves.
Industry stakeholders now warn that unless the Deputy Prime Minister directly intervenes to break the bureaucratic deadlock, Pakistan may lose yet another opportunity to revive one of its most strategically important crops.
With the sowing season already underway and the reform agenda still trapped inside official files, the textile sector believes the government’s cotton revival campaign risks becoming yet another policy failure consumed by bureaucratic red tape and institutional inertia.
Ends
