Mumbai, April 4 (KNN) Ruing the fact that mainstream cotton textile products, which face high tariff barriers and preferential treatment by importing countries, were given a duty credit scrip of 2 per cent while handlooms, carpets, coir products enjoy higher rates of 2-5 per cent under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme, R K Dalmia, Chairman of Texprocil asked if the government be able to achieve the mark of $900 billion in the next five years by promoting handloom and coir products.

Texprocil, (The Cotton Textile Promotion Council of India), which has been the international face of cotton textiles from India facilitating exports worldwide feels that the export-import policy has given not given a fair deal to the textile industry. They feel that textile, the second largest employment provider in the country has been totally ignored, especially the cotton yarn sector, that too at a time when its facing high logistics costs when exported to markets like Latin America. Also, the exports of cotton yarn has declined sharply.

He lamented the fact that neither any announcement was made on the extension of interest rate subvention at a time when the industry has to bear high capital costs, which is affecting this labour-intensive industry nor the Government has not included these items under market access negotiations with that country despite growing opportunities for textiles products such as yarn, fabrics and made-ups to China.
 
He suggested that if the tariffs on fabrics exported to China are reduced to 5 per cent or less, from the present level of 10 per cent, Indian exports to China can be increased substantially as this will link up with the value chain in the region.
 
And efforts on similar lines should be made to negotiate tariff reductions with South East Asian countries such as Vietnam to link up with the value chain in those regions, said Dalmia. (KNN/SS)