Indian textile & apparel exports fall 13% in Jan 2018

17 Feb '18

2 min read

A decline of 13 per cent year-on-year has been observed in the exports of Indian textiles and apparel in January this year, as per an official data. The sharp fall in the exports of cotton textile by 16 per cent year-on-year, apparel by about 14 per cent year-on-year and man-made textiles by 7 per cent year-on-year contributed to the sub-optimum performance.

The share of textile and apparel exports has also declined from 14 to 12 per cent in January 2018 as compared to the corresponding period of January 2017, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) said citing data from ministry of commerce and industry. The cumulative exports of textile and apparel were also down by 4 per cent as the exports stood at Rs 187,080 crore in April-January 2018 in comparison to Rs 194,047 crore in April-January 2017.

Expressing concern over the decline in exports, CITI chairman Sanjay Jain stated that one of the key factors for decline in exports is embedded duties which are more than 5 per cent and the same is not getting refunded at any stage. "CITI has been knocking at every door from the PMO to the textile ministry for the immediate restoration of export incentives for cotton yarn which is the most vulnerable sector at this juncture as cotton yarn exports have decline by more than 26 per cent from 2013-14 to 2016-17 despite adding over 3 million spindles and 62,000 rotors spinning capacity during this period," said Jain.

There was also a continuous rise in the imports of textile products post GST. The imports of textile yarn, fabric and made-ups has increased by 15 per cent from Rs 8,592 crore in April to January 2017 to Rs 9,914 crore in the same period this year.

Hoping that the government would take suitable actions in such a challenging situation, Jain stated that by including cotton yarn under MEIS and providing ROSL package for fabrics and cotton yarn, Indian can retain its competitiveness in the global market.

"The industry has been asking the government for increase in customs duty across the value chain (yarn and fabric). There is a greater need to impose safeguard measures such as rules of origin, yarn forward and fabric forward rules on the countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka that have FTAs with India to prevent cheaper fabrics produced from countries like China routed through these countries," said Jain. (RR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India

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