Textile industry body Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) has requested the Union government to extend benefits for garments exporters so that they can compete with players in countries with whom India has signed free trade agreements (FTA). R K Dalmia, Chairman of Texprocil feels, considering the infrastructural disabilities, cascading effect of un-rebated taxes, high cost of inputs and preferential benefits granted to competitors, the government has to play an important role by continuing the export benefits for some more time.
He further said that the emergence of mega trade agreements being promoted by United States and the European Union amongst themselves and other key trading partners like Korea, Vietnam and Japan poses fresh challenges to countries like India. It therefore, would be best if India takes an integrated rather than an ad-hoc approach while negotiating new FTA or re-negotiating old ones.
He had earlier asked the government to include cotton textiles under the three per cent interest subvention scheme, release of funds through TUF and recalibrating the product/country matrix under the newly introduced Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).
Though overall exports of cotton textiles declined by 0.1 per cent in FY 2014-15, shipment of cotton fabrics and made-ups registered growths of 11 per cent and 5 per cent to $2.44 billion and $5.05 billion respectively.
www.texprocil.org
