Has Walmart started to pull out of Pakistan too?

We suspect claims Walmart’s pulling out of Pakistan might be exaggerated. But there’s probably a lesson in them for businesses trying to capitalise on Bangladesh’s problems

A committee member on one of Pakistan’s many textile and garment trade associations, reading about Walmart’s Bangladeshi factory delistings, contacted the retailer, suggesting they use Pakistani factories instead.

He seems to have got a fairly quick brushoff, and says “the retail chain refused, citing security issues and the energy crisis in Pakistan”. He’s interpreted that as showing that Walmart is not going to “give Pakistan any fresh orders”

Now there’s no way of knowing what Walmart really said: a pretty good definition of a stick is a piece of wood a Pakistani factory owner can be guaranteed to get hold of the wrong end of. My suspicion is that he didn’t act on behalf of any current Walmart supplier in Pakistan, but being on the textile subcommittee of Pakistan’s Chambers of Commerce association, saw himself as some kind of national representative. 

Walmart, I further suspect, wants neither to get dragged into inspecting any more South Asian factories than it has to nor to give the impression it was pulling out of Bangladesh. It simply declined to add any more new suppliers in Pakistan – but that tells us nothing about whether Pakistan’s altogether blacklisted.

If I were in Walmart’s buying office, I’d be getting increasingly miffed at the number of countries trying to get new orders on the back of Bangladesh’s troubles – and would be tempted to remind such people that their country wasn’t top of the company’s list of potential suppliers before the Bangladesh crises, and hasn’t shown any reason for being promoted. The factory owner in this case is based in Karachi, and I’d be further tempted to point out fairly bluntly that Karachi isn’t exactly the world centre of safe factories – or honest factory inspectors.  

Given the obsession Pakistan’s textile businesses have with constantly complaining about the impossibility of doing business – and the bizarre contradiction between these permanent complaints and the healthiness of Pakistan’s clothing and textile exports – Pakistani textile businesses have only themselves to blame if buyers read their perpetual whines and take them seriously.