pakistan geographical review 1954 - University of the Punjab

It realIy helped various towns to start ginning and spinning and latter on
weaving. The largest cotton mill is at Shahi having 12,000 spindles. Others are
at Yezd, Isfahan, Meshed, Bandar Abbas, Sernnaus, Kerman, Tabriz and Tehran.
Total number of mills is 29. producing 4500 tons of yarn and 5. million yards
of cloth annually. Textile expansion plans have been devised under which
more mills will be installed at Narr afi and Sanayee. There are 9 woollen mills
at Tabriz, Qazvin, Yezrl and Isfahan, where 100 tons of yarn and 150,000
blankets and It million yards of cloth are prepared. In the province of Mazandran
there is silk rearing with a state owned silk factory at Chalous and a private
owned at Resht, with 8,000 spindles and 224 loom. Some jute is grown on the
Caspian sea coast and Resht and Shahi have small jute mills.
In 1947, West Pakistan had only 3 cotton weaving factories in Lahore,
Okara and Lyallpur. With the growing demand for cotton cloth and limited
scope for cotton export more and more weaving mills are going to be established.
Four new mills have already been erected, two in Karachi, one in
Multan and one in Lyallpur. Six more mills are planned to be started in the
near future. Total number of ginning and pressing mills is 322 and of spinning
and weaving factories 21. Artificial silk is imported and at Karachi there have
been installed three silk textile mills. There is much scope for further
expansion in cotton as well as woollen textiles.
In Iraq a cotton spinning and weaving mill was started in 1947, near
Baghdad with a plan of 5,000 spindles and 84 automatic looms. A second
scheme enlarged the capacity of the mill to 22,000 spindles and 500 looms.
There is every liklihood of the mill producing 6,000,000 lbs. of yarn annually.
Another factory is being built at Mosul with 584 looms which will produce 15
millions square yards of cotton and rayon cloth per year. This amount is i of
Iraq's normal annual requirements. Improvements in texture is being sought.
Fine shirting and poplin will be-produced' and in a few years the capacity
of the mill will be doubled.
The woollen industry III Iraq is older than the cotton industry but
so far only yarn is being spun for use in hand loom weaving and knitting. This
plant is equipped to make a broad range of five fabrics. There are smaller
mills capable of meeting all the requirements of the country but the present
production is 50,000 kilos of yarn. It prepares 500,000 meters of cloth.
Under the Ottoman rule, Syria, was the most industrialised region of
the Middle East. Today it is an important centre of handicraft industry.
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