20000315

'Carpet sector

not employing

child labour'

RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Yacoob Salehjee, Chairman of Pakistan Carpet Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PCMEA), has said that carpet sector employs only adult, trained manpower and provides no jobs to children.

Speaking at a seminar jointly organised by PCMEA and Sindh Small Industries Corporation (SSIC) at Hyderabad on Tuesday, he said that foreign buyers were of the view that carpet industry in Pakistan was based on child labour, but this it was a wrong notion.

The PCMEA has established the Pakistan Carpet Training Institute to train unemployed youth and is engaging them in carpet sector, he said.

He sought the help of SSIC to revive its carpet industry so that Pakistan could earn reasonable foreign exchange be exporting carpets.

Dr Mohammed Khawar Jameel, Managing Director, SSIC, said that the corporation had been re-activated to speed up the pace of industrialisation and to promote the export-oriented handicrafts of Sindh.

He said that the SSIC has sought cooperation from the NGOs is being acquired, according to which the SSIC has sought cooperation of PCMEA to reactivate 19 SSIC carpet centres, located in the interior of Sindh and in Karachi.