India has raised import duties on a large number of textile apparels, fibres and related products such as carpets by up to 20 per cent. Spread across 37 broad tariff areas, the import duties, however, target products for which India’s imports are low.

This includes textile apparels and accessories, hosiery items and certain types of vegetable based textile fibres, among others. Effective duty rate for most of these items have been doubled. Import duties had been increased for an even broader set of products and goods in the textile categories back in October 2017.

Interestingly, export of apparels, the largest chunk of exports within the textile segment, has been contracting since some months. Export of ready-made garments continued to drop in June, contracting by 12.34 per cent, albeit lower than the 16.62 per cent fall seen in May.