The government has reduced the grant from $6.5 million to $3 million for establishing the Technical Textile Centre at National Textile University.
According to documents, the Korean government through its Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) approved a grant amount of $ 6.5 million for the establishment of the Pak-Korea Technical Textile Centre in Faisalabad.
The grant included the construction of the Centre, equipment, and training. However, due to some unavoidable circumstances, the budget was reduced to only $ 3.0 million excluding the cost of building and reducing the number of equipment.
The Centre has been initially established in the building of the National Textile Research of the University.
The support provided by the KOICA has a substantial impact on initiating the knowledge of technical textiles in Pakistan. However, there is still a need to add some state-of-the-art facilities for the promotion of technical textile technology in Pakistan.
A joint venture between KOICA, National Textile University, Faisalabad, Higher Education Commission, Islamabad, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training and Economic Affair Division, Government of Pakistan has also been signed.
The project Concept Paper was submitted to the Korean Government through the South-East section of the Economic Affairs Division for funding and project funds are available with the KOICA, Islamabad for disbursement. The project is also in accordance with the textile policy, 2014-2019, and the Textiles and Apparel Policy 2020-25.
According to documents, Pakistan had a plan to increase Textile exports from $13 million to $26 million under the textile policy 2014-2019 but this could not materialize.
The focus of this project is to provide trained professionals to the textile industry. In addition to direct employment opportunities in terms of managerial, technical, and support staff, there will also be indirect employment opportunities for labor to be involved in Civil Works and manpower associated with other project procurements i.e., equipment.
In addition, the technical training/capacity-building programs proposed under this project will lead to more employment opportunities for researchers and students in the textile industry.
