Dr Gohar Ejaz Group on Monday swept the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) annual elections for consecutive 14th time.

According to the 24News HD TV channel, the result of the elections was announced by the APTMA Patron-in-Chief Dr Gohar Ejaz and Secretary General Raza Baqir in a press conference at the association office in Lahore.

As per the election results, Rehman Naseem, Amanullah Kassim, Zahid Rasheed Khawja, Hamid Zaman, Syed Ali Ahsan, , Muhammad Junaid, S M Tanveer, Zohair Dilawar Agha,  Shaiq Jawed, Asad Shafi, Imran Maqbool Naveed Ahmed, Zahid Mazhar and Muhammad Anees Khawaja are elected unopposed as the members of the Central Executive Committee of APTMA.

APTMA Secretary Raza Baqir announced the zonal elections results. He said Hamid Zaman has been elected as the chairman, Kamran Arshad as senior vice chairman; Khwaja Muhammad Anees as vice chairman; Asad Shafi, treasurer.

He said Haroon Shahzada Ellahi Shaikh, Omar Latif Chaudhry, Muhammad Ali Chaudhry, Umair Abid, Ahsan Shahid Warraich, Shahroze Ahmad, Haroon Shahid, S M Nabeel, and Sufyan Akhtar are elected as members of Zonal Managing Committee.

Dr Gohar Ejaz congratulated his group members for their win at both the centre and zonal levels.

He expressed the hope that newly-elected members will work hard to strengthen the exports of textile industry. He said textile exports were stagnant at $12 to 13 billion till 2018/19 due to high power tariff and unavailability of energy for textile industry.

He said the new investment of $5 billion in textile sector has potential to give exponential growth to the exports. 

Dr Gohar Ejaz announced efforts to make $50 billion exports by moving to the stitching sector and conversion of $3 billion yarn and fabrics into the value-added garments for exports, fetching exports of $10 billion.

He announced establishing Garment Training Centre to train manpower for garment sector. He also announced establishing Pakistan Economic Forum, consisting of export professionals from all fields of economy to analyse the economic woes and to give economic vision for the next 10 years.

Despite heavy rains and floods in the country, he expressed the hope about better cotton crop this year. He also announced a contribution of Rs250 million on behalf of APTMA to the Flood Relief Fund of the federal government and vowed to support the country at its time of need.

On this occasion, outgoing APTMA Chairman Abdul Rahim Nasir thanked Dr Gohar Ejaz for all his support, vision and guidance to put the textile sector on the right track.