The Pakistani Government has been advised by foreign textile buying houses to set up a central compliance centre in the country to improve manufacturers’ compliance with social standards, a critical factor in apparel sourcing decisions. The government may consider setting up sourcing parks to ensure a single-window facility, they suggested.

The country’s first buying and sourcing houses symposium was recently organised by the commerce division of the commerce ministry and the Trade Development Authority.

It was attended by representatives from a large number of foreign buying houses, including Ikea, H&M, Marks and Spencer and Inditex, according to Pakistani media reports.

Many buying houses that relocated out of Pakistan due to the security situation in the past may come back if offered incentives like subsidised office space, the representatives said.

Two US companies, Character World and Disney, had shifted buying orders to Bangladesh and other regional countries in the recent past.

The buyers said a national compliance centre may be set up, to coordinate the improvement of compliances on cooperative model to improve social compliances by the manufacturers, which are increasingly becoming an important critical determinant of sourcing decisions.

The commerce ministry has been in the process of formulating a strategic trade policy framework for the 2018-23 period and the symposium aimed at gathering inputs from the buying and sourcing houses in that regard, commerce secretary Younus Dagha said.

After witnessing slow growth during the past couple of years, outbound shipments recovered by 12 per cent to $15 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal as exporters availed of government incetives to boost exports.