Tirupur exporters seek zero excise duty on man-made fibres

05 Jun '14

2 min read

Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA) has urged the Indian Government to announce zero excise duty for man-made fibres and special machinery to manufacture synthetic garments, Zee news reports quoting PTI.

Earlier this week, TEA president A Sakthivel separately met Minister of State for Textiles Santosh Kumar Gangwar and Minister of State for Commerce & Industry Nirmala Sitharaman and submitted a representation including the major issues to be addressed for the growth of knitwear export sector, of which Tirupur is a hub.

In the memorandum, Mr. Sakthivel said zero excise duty on man-made fibres would result in increase in their usage in production of garments, and thereby raise exports of man-made fibre garments.

On allowing duty-free import of special machinery, the memorandum said it would attract more investment in synthetic garment manufacturing sector.

In his meetings, Mr. Sakthivel also raised several other issues including the early implementation of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) and early signing of a free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union.

He said the EU accounts for over 50 percent of TEA exports and hence, early signing of FTA would help in increasing India’s share in the European market. At present, Bangladesh, which enjoys duty-free facility for its exports to the EU due to it being a least developed country (LDC), exports around US$ 22 billion worth of garments in a year compared to India’s $15 billion.

The TEA also wants that the customs duty on import of synthetic/blended and speciality fabric of cotton be reduced to flat five percent equivalent to drawback rate on pilot basis with a restriction of imports to 10 percent of total export carried out and realised in the preceding year by a garment exporter on actual user condition from 2014-15 onwards for re-export as garments.

Further, to protect the export sector from increasing credit rate, a separate chapter was needed in monetary policy and the sector should be delinked with the base rate system currently being followed by banks.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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