Textiles and clothing industry in India is the worst affected among the textile producing countries due to additional challenges on the raw material front, both cotton and manmade fibres, and steep increase in power cost in most of the textile manufacturing States, said K.V. Srinivasan, the newly-elected president of International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF).
Mr. Srinivasan said, in a press release, that “urgent policy measure is required to ensure smooth supply of raw material at an internationally competitive rate by removing 11% import duty on cotton, addressing Quality Control Order (QCO) issues and price issues pertaining to PTA, MEG, Polyester and Viscose and ensure a level playing field.”
The government should have started enforcing the QCOs from finished goods rather than raw materials that had severe impact on the MMF value chain.
The government could have avoided these two short-sighted policies when the industry had been facing an unforeseen crisis that had worsened the global competitiveness and performance of the industry, he said in the release.
Further, huge incentives offered for new investments by several State governments in the country were eroding the competitiveness of existing capacities and making them unviable as the industry was struggling with excess capacity.
India, which was the second largest producer of raw material, was unable to leverage on it while countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam that did not have a raw material base had achieved exponential growth rate in exports. Indian exports were stagnating at $ 35 billion for more than a decade, he pointed out.
