Jaipur: The steep rise in cotton yarn and fabric prices has started impacting the apparel industry. Apparel Exports Promotion Council chairman A Sakthivel, who was in Jaipur, said that the recent growth in apparel exports would be impaired if the runaway rise in yarn and cotton prices are not curbed.
Early this month, he has written a letter to textiles minister Piyush Goyal to intervene and take measures to rein in the rise in raw material prices without which there could be shortages as early as February and March next year.
“Apparel exports during the April-October have grown by 44% to $8.6 billion. In fact, the shipments have grown by double digit in the past two months. With the peak season approaching, India has the opportunity to leverage good global demand and order position and meet the $20.03 billion export target for 2021-22,” said Sakthivel.
However, the uncertainties in the cotton yarn price has created hurdles. The industry is also facing increasing input cost pressure on other fronts. In the letter to the textiles minister, Sakthivel said, “The rise in cotton yarn and fabrics prices have started impacting the entire value chain. Adding to this is the volatile crude oil price, logistics cost, coal addition to the yarn prices, the rising crude oil prices, logistics cost, coal prices, prices of dyeing and chemicals etc which has impacted costing of apparels considerably. Because of this, exporters are not being able to service existing orders and finding it difficult to take new orders.” He urged the minister to consider quantitative restrictions on export of cotton and cotton yarn to bring down galloping prices.
“Cotton Corporation of India should be actively involved in managing cotton prices. CCI should also be advised not to increase prices at present as it will impact yarn prices and have a cascading effect across value chain. As a long-term measure, cotton price stabilization fund scheme should be announced,” he said .
Sakthivel, which is also the chairman of Apparel Training and Design Centre, said they are in the throes of upgrading the training centers. “Jaipur is one of the main hubs for garment exports. Accordingly, we have started the process of upgrading the centres here,” he said. ATDC is also focusing on upskilling existing employees for enhancing their productivity. Sakthivel said, “The new working committees are putting their best efforts to improve drastically the quality and productivity of the training centres.”
Source:thetimesofindia.com