Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has taken up major grievances in the textile cluster with the commerce minister Suresh Prabhu. The CM has requested the Union minister to increase the interest subvention from 3 per cent to 5 per cent for the apparel sector. This apart, the exporters’ plea for increasing the duty drawback to remain cost competitive in the global markets was also highlighted.

The exporters in Tirupur cluster are also struggling to get a level playing field in European and American apparel markets due to the preferential trade tariff advantages enjoyed by Bangladesh and few other direct competitor countries. For this, the chief minister has suggested expedition of signing of free trade agreements with European Union, United States of America and United Kingdom.