ISLAMABAD, Aug 23: Pakistan’s textile export competitiveness requires a fair distribution of the financial and operational burden of sustainability among global retail brands, local manufacturers and governments, speakers at a stakeholder conference said.
Industry representatives, policymakers, regulators, researchers, and law and energy sector experts expressed these views at a national sectoral dialogue titled “Currents of Changes: Textile Compliance, Shared Responsibility, and Pakistan’s Power Market Transition,” organised by Alternate Development Services (ADS).
National Grid Company Chairman Fiaz Chaudhary said power-sector reforms had often been introduced without addressing the underlying causes of structural problems, resulting in further complications. He gave a historical overview of reforms dating back to the 1980s and 1990s, tracing the institutional evolution from WAPDA’s unbundling to the creation of NTDC, its later transformation into NGC, and the emergence of ISMO.
He identified recurring policy mistakes, particularly the unbundling or dissolution of institutions without creating effective functional replacements. He said the abandonment of meritocracy and the appointment of inexperienced individuals with limited understanding of the energy sector to key decision-making positions had been a major cause of reform failures.
Mr Chaudhary said around 70 per cent of power distribution companies were already performing according to international standards, while governance issues existed in the remaining 30 per cent. Instead of privatising all DISCOs, he said, their problems should be assessed individually and addressed accordingly.
He also pointed to the widening gap between electricity demand in summer and winter, as well as between daytime and nighttime demand, as a major challenge, saying solarisation had further altered consumption patterns.
He said the unbundling of WAPDA had weakened an otherwise strong institution and contributed to a halt in growth in power generation, while the IPP model introduced to bridge the resulting gap had subsequently created significant challenges for Pakistan.
However, he said the power sector was now moving in the right direction and commended ISMO’s efforts to implement the Competitive Trading Bilateral Contract Market (CTBCM). He said CTBCM represented an important structural reform that could help Pakistan move from a state-controlled “single buyer model” towards an open and competitive wholesale electricity market.
ADS Chief Executive Officer Amjad Nazeer said the conference aimed to promote constructive dialogue on sustainability and competitiveness in Pakistan’s textile and apparel industry and develop practical solutions to challenges involving compliance, decarbonisation, financing, buyer expectations, technology adoption and workforce capacity.
He said ADS was introducing its Shared Transition Responsibility Movement (STRM) as a shared-responsibility mechanism, while industry input was being sought for its design and rollout. He added that the initiative also sought to develop a practical understanding of CTBCM among industrial stakeholders, including its auction process, financing requirements, renewable-energy options and battery energy storage systems (BESS).
NEPRA Director General Licensing Imtiaz Hussain Baloch shared regulatory insights on the mathematical and structural complexities shaping decisions within NEPRA and the wider energy landscape. He said energy policy required balancing trade-offs across dozens of conflicting variables and that no single market solution could be judged as completely right or wrong.
APTMA Energy Adviser Asim Riaz said the Iran-US war had made energy security one of the world’s biggest challenges. He said CTBCM could help Pakistan make better use of domestic energy resources and move towards greater energy self-reliance.
National Productivity Organization Director Aftab Khan said reliance on untrained and low-skilled labour in SMEs increased production costs. He said NPO had conducted resource-efficiency and energy audits at more than 1,000 SMEs and industrial units under a low- or no-investment approach, helping reduce costs and improve productivity.
LUMS Energy Institute Director Naveed Arshad said motors accounted for around 85 per cent of industrial electricity consumption and that energy conservation and digitalisation could reduce electricity consumption by 20 to 30 per cent.
Prof Dr Shahzad Maqsood of Punjab University highlighted the scientific and commercial potential of industrial waste recycling. He distinguished between waste and trash and between recycling and upcycling, and called for practical interventions, including cleaning industrial drains and landfills and developing commercially scalable solutions for solar-panel and battery waste.
Dr Syed Ali Abbas Kazmi, HOD EEP at USPCAS-E, NUST, examined the technical and economic implications of industrial solarisation and battery energy storage systems. He warned that poorly designed CTBCM rules could create new stranded-cost risks and highlighted grid congestion and the potential for industries to participate in open-market electricity trading.
ADS Energy Transition Officer Ashfa Ashraf called for a shared approach to ESG compliance, arguing that global brands should co-finance sustainability efforts rather than placing the burden solely on manufacturers in the Global South. She outlined the Pakistan Shared Transition Responsibility Consortium’s focus on co-investment, procurement reforms, transparency, data alignment and sustainable manufacturing.
ADS Energy Transition Officer Muhammad Usman Bin Ahmed presented the CTBCM Readiness Toolkit, which helps industrial buyers and sellers assess their technical and financial readiness for bilateral power contracts. He said the toolkit models Use of System Charges (UoSC) and System Marginal Price (SMP) imbalance risks to assess market readiness.
During a panel discussion titled “From Compliance Pressure to Collaborative Solutions,” participants stressed co-investment, public-private partnerships, Just Transition principles and Digital Product Passports to strengthen traceability, transparency and equitable brand-supplier collaboration across the textile value chain.
Participants in another panel on “Policy and Institutional Perspectives: CTBCM” examined renewable-energy integration, grid infrastructure and energy efficiency as essential to industrial competitiveness and resilience.
