US store to double garment imports

LAHORE: JC Penny, an American departmental store chain, plans to double its imports of garments from Pakistan over the next two years, Governor Khalid Maqbool was told on Saturday night.

At a dinner at Governor’s House in honour of visiting US retailers, Tom Gorski, director of JC Penny, said the store chain currently buys around $70 million of cloth from Pakistan each year and was looking to increase its purchases because of the improvement in quality of garments manufactured in Pakistan.

Maqbool told the visitors that the government had focussed on improving the quality of Pakistani products to make them more competitive in the international market. He said the Punjab government is building two ‘garment cities’, in Lahore and Faisalabad, where thousands of stitching units would be set up.

He said Pakistani farmers were trying to produce cotton free of pollutants, which would increase the demand for Pakistani textile products.

Deb Evans, JC Penny’s director of product development, Philip See, regional director for South Asia, Khurram Iftikhar, Amtex chief executive, marketing managers, bankers and industrialists attended the dinner. app

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