Pakistan's fashion industry has huge export potentia (Pakistan)l

The fashion industry in Pakistan has huge potential to export to niche markets like India, Europe, the United States and the Middle East. However, the fashion industry is not being able to tap these markets, mainly due to lack of skilled manpower and technicians, who are a key to quality output.

 

The views were shared by the Pakistan fashion industry experts, who participated in an interactive seminar on the ‘Potential of the fashion industry in Pakistan,’ organized by the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan (TDAP).

 

As the cross-border India-Pakistan trade opens, it would extend great opportunities for Pakistani fashion industry, as Made-in-Pakistan products have good demand in India. But, it would require the Pakistani industry to enhance its production to meet the large-scale demand of the buyers.

 

According to experts, Pakistan has great potential in the fashion industry that can be explored further, but creativity, innovation, integrity and continuous growth of the industry are crucial for the industry to achieve any set goals.

 

Stating that fashion designing students need to be innovative and creative and at the same time be sincere to their business commitments, Seafam (Pvt) Ltd Managing Director, Hamid Zaman, said it is the commitment of the fashion designer towards his work that takes a brand to the heights of success.

 

Pakistan Institute of Fashion and Design’s (PFID) Shiwana Abid said Pakistan’s fashion industry has vast export potential, but lacks skilled human resource, and hence they are working hard to equip their students with all skills to turn them into designers matching the world standards.

 

PIFD and some government institutes are putting in all their efforts to produce highly skilled technicians for the domestic fashion industry, she added.

 

While shortage of skilled workforce is holding back the industry from producing in bulk to cater to the world market, energy crisis is also hampering the industry’s growth. The product quality gets affected due to several breaks in the production process caused by frequent power cuts, she added.