Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) is urging the government to initiate anti-dumping law on export of low-cost yarn by competing countries, like Pakistan and India. As per BTMA, dumping of yarns not only adversely affects their production and marketing but also defies international trading practices under the WTO rules.

In its recent letter to the Finance Minister, BTMA alleged that India has started exporting yarn to Bangladesh at dumping prices. Considering the international prices of cotton and the cost of other components for production, the BTMA claimed that India was exporting its 40- count combed yarn at rates lower than the production cost. This is creating undue competition for Bangladeshi manufacturers.

Bangladesh's primary textile sector, estimated to be worth $8 billion in investment, is working as a dynamic backward linkage industry and supplying 80 per cent of knit and 35 per cent of woven fabrics to the export-oriented readymade garment sector. Experts say, with the use of local inputs, the value of RMG export increased to $35 billion from $26 billion in the last five years. However, lately, with Coronavirus hitting the industry hard, exports of garment and textile products are feared to slump by as low as 40 per cent to the European Union alone, the largest export market for Bangladesh.

In such a situation, if backward linkage factories, such as the textile mills, are adversely affected by dumped imports, this key feeding-industry would be fraught with untoward barriers to produce even on a limited scale. Hence textile millers now want the government to initiate anti-dumping duty on yarn import.