KARACHI – Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) is a globally leading financial institution, in continuation of its global initiative for supporting sustainable-financing and promoting Earth-Friendly industrial practices, it has provided a ~4.4 Million US Dollars of a sustainable-trade financing facility to Gul Ahmed Textile Mills Limited – one of the leading industrial enterprises in Pakistan.
This is a part of SCB’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) philosophy, with a vision to enhance economic inclusion and environmental sustainability.
This robust investment will build capacity for importing and retiring BCI cotton in Pakistan, as Gul Ahmed Textiles is among Pakistan’s largest composite units, making everything from cotton yarn to finished products, whilst also having strong aspirations to become a ‘Green Company’, with minimum carbon-footprint and harmless emissions.
With this additional capital, SCB and Gul Ahmed Textiles have structured highly sustainable trade facilities, in a manner to allow client flexibility with interchangeable limits, for issuance and retirement.
The Chief Executive Officer of SCB, Pakistan – Mr. Rehan Shaikh stated that: “This is an inspirational initiative, where we are enabling high-performance clients and socially responsible enterprises to achieve their objectives of maintaining a healthy environment for the future while seeking commercial progress and exploring growth opportunities. We appreciate Gul Ahmed’s re-aligned policies, to promote the use of earth-friendly raw materials, for the production of textile goods, while consuming safer energy – preferably renewable power. Additionally, we have also deployed automated internal checks and balances, to assist the textile industry in tracking the imports from BCI certified farmers.”
These new policies and measures will ensure that; only sustainable raw materials are routed under this banking facility. This sustainable business model is built as per the guidelines from; “The Better Cotton Initiative” (BCI) – a global not-for-profit organization, operating the largest cotton sustainability program in the world. They provide training on more sustainable farming practices to more than 2.3 million cotton farmers in 23 countries. To read more about BCI click here (https://bettercotton.org).’
Standard Chartered Pakistan has a long history of contributing to the social-economic development and supporting communities in the country. Investing in communities is one of the three priorities of its global strategy.
