Pakistan’s commerce ministry and Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH recently signed an implementation agreement to support two projects, one of which is on improvement of labour, social and environmental standards in the country’s textile industry.
The signing followed an earlier memorandum of understanding.
Under this programme, Germany would provide GIZ up-to €7,500,000 as German contribution for three years, according to Pakistani media reports.
The technical cooperation on this project aims to increase value-addition and competitiveness, and foster innovation by synergising the environmental, social and economic dimension of sustainability in the textiles and apparel industry.
The outcome of the project would be to support the digitalisation of labour and human resource department’s (LHRD) downstream institutions like Punjab Employees Social Security Institution (PESSI), formulation and implementation of measures to ensure sustainable production, transform 15-20 companies that made use of good environmental practices, innovative technologies or labour standards to move to higher-value addition or enter new markets, and initiate two campaigns on occupational safety and health (OSH), particularly for small and medium enterprises, to achieve international certification in labour and environmental standards.
