| Date: |
19-06-2015 |
| Subject: |
Textile industry waits with bated breath for new policy |
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As the government prepares to unveil a new national textiles policy aimed to boost the sector’s exports, the industry expects the new guidelines to be friendly towards it.
The new policy is expected to address concerns of adequate skilled work force, labour reforms, attract investments in the textile sector, and to provide a road map for the textile and clothing industry. The new policy aims to achieve $300 billion textiles exports by 2024-25 and predicts the creation of additional 35 million jobs.
The industry is hoping that its expectations will be fulfilled. Ravi Chechani of Aditya Birla said,”There should not be any bifurcation in duty structure of cotton and synthetics (polyester, viscose etc) in the entire value chain from fibre to fashion. And if we have to grow, it is very important that the level should be same for all fibres.”
Smooth funding for ease of business is also on the industry’s wishlist. “All the subsidy should be allowed to be applied online by applicant. There should be no intervention by bank so time can be saved. Necessary certificate from bank is to be demanded to ensure proper utilisation of subsidy. The release of fund should be fast. (presently it stretches to a year or so),” said Jatin Jalal of JNJ Associates.
The industry also expects an uniform import duty for textile machinery and spare parts.
Surjit Singh Mahajan , director of the Indian arm of Swiss mechatronics company Staubli said, “There should be uniform import duty when weaving machine with Dobby is imported or when Sheddding System like Jacquard is imported separately.”
“Uniform import duty structure for spare parts for textile machinery will make life simple for the government, customs and customers and will reduce corruption to clear consignments under different nomenclature and heads.”
He also batted for stable government policies and said that once declared, a policy should be valid for a minimum for five years.
Swen Schwenkner, areas sales manager of Andritz Küsters GmbH that specialises in textile and nonwoven calendar had a suggestion about a particular scheme. “Change the TUF scheme. Actually Calendering Machines are defined in wrong way and only give chances to our competition,” he said.
Earlier this week, the cotton textiles export promotion council (TEXPROCIL) said that the removal of benefits on exports to African countries in the new foreign trade policy would affect shipments of value added products like cotton dyed and printed fabrics.
Another textile export body, the Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA), requested the government this month to take up the demand of the entrepreneurs in SME-dominated Tirupur knitwear cluster for raising the threshold limit for MSMEs from Rs 10 crore to Rs 25 crore to avail various subsidies and incentives.
Source : fibre2fashion.com
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