New Sri Lanka-India FTA may include yarn imports

10 Dec '10

2 min read

The Sri Lankan Government is to renew the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Indian Government and it even intends to bring yarn imports under the agreement.

In relation to the same, the entrepreneurs have already been directed to forward their written request to the Industry and Commerce Ministry so that the same could be considered while discussion.

There has been a considerable rise of around 75 percent in the cotton yarn prices over the past four months.

Moreover, India's ban on cotton yarn export has placed the Sri Lankan textile industry under a difficult situation wherein the textile units may face the risk of closure, which is going to cause over 100,000 employees in the sector to lose their jobs.

The country by and large imports cotton yarn from India, Thailand and Vietnam. But, now, with India imposing a ban on cotton yarn exports, it has caused the Sri Lankan firms relying on the cotton yarn imports from India to suffer great loss. But still, the country's major cotton yarn imports remained to be from India because the producers were in favour of importing from India, it being the closest port, and also for reasons like of less freight rates. Apart from these, Indian exporters even accepted smaller orders.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India