Offers from ChPT fail to impress Tirupur exporters

March 04, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 07:03 am IST - Tirupur:

The Chennai Port Trust (ChPT) administration had recently extended a red carpet welcome to Tirupur knitwear exporters by offering a slew of assurances with an aim to draw at least 50 per cent of the apparel export cargo from Tirupur via Chennai port within three years.

Response

But it looks from the subsequent response of the exporters and opinions of customs house agents/ steamer agents that the Chennai port would have to wait for many more years to achieve the said target.

At the moment, only a little over 10 per cent of the apparels exported from Tirupur are going through Chennai port with almost 70 per cent still getting shipped from Tuticorin port. Chennai port authorities had promised to look at the possibilities of introducing a mother vessel to United States of America and also listed out various steps to reduce the transportation time for the cargoes to reach the vessels.

Problems

“But unless operational/space congestions that usually occur when iron ore are exported causing delays for the other consignments, are addressed, it will be difficult to attract more apparel exporters to the Chennai port even if mother vessels are calling on the port,” Dileep T. Abraham, president of Custom House and Steamer Agents’ Association for Coimbatore and Tirupur districts pointed out to The Hindu.

Even though mainly feeder vessels were only calling on at Tuticorin port against the mother vessels coming at Chennai port, the exporters feel that such advantages of Chennai port is getting nullified as the cargoes had to be ‘gated-in’ at Chennai port much prior to berthing of the vessels.

“In the case of Tuticorin and Kochi ports, last minute loading is permitted, which remains a huge edge. Export consignments from Tirupur are frequently been sent to the ports at the last minute due to tight production/delivery schedules and the exporters could not afford any subsequent delays in getting the items shipped to the foreign destinations,” M. Veluswamy, an apparel exporter and chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (Tirupur district council), said.

Another reason cited by exporters for using Tuticorin port more was the speed in getting duty drawback claims vis-à-vis when using Chennai port.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.