Imports of sleeping bags create controversy

10 Jul '10

1 min read

The American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition (AMTAC) is up in arms over the issue of not classifying of the sleeping bag as a textile product by the US administration.

Exxel Outdoors, a manufacturer of sleeping bags had petitioned the government to classify sleeping bags as a textile product, but the US Trade Representative (USTR) has not done the same in its latest review of the latest Generalized System of Tariff Preferences (GSP).

The decision of the USTR will help exporters of sleeping bags to avoid paying imports duties, when exporting the same, since it has not been classified as a textile product. AMTAC is of the opinion that this decision puts local manufacturers of sleeping bags at a disadvantage.

AMTAC says that 90 percent of the value and 96 percent of the weight of the inputs that go in to the manufacturing of a sleeping bag constitute textile raw material products like fiber fill, outer-shell fabric and sewing yarn.

It may be recalled that, GSP was created in 1974 to help developing economies to export their goods duty-free into the US. However, textile and its value-added products were excluded from the list, due to their import sensitivity.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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