At the 61st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) which was held at the Trident Hotel here today with senior members of the cotton textile industry in attendance, the Chairman of TEXPROCIL, Shri R K Dalmia said that the textile industry is well placed to generate new jobs.
In his opening remarks, the Chairman stated that even though the overall exports of cotton textiles declined by 0.1% compared to fiscal 2013-2014, the heartening fact is that exports of Cotton Fabrics and Made-ups registered growths of 11% and 5% with exports reaching a level of USD 2.44 billion and USD 5.05 billion respectively. This augurs well for our industry as exports of value added products in the long run would lead to greater employment and higher level of investments, he said.
He also stated that the emergence of mega trade agreements being promoted by USA and the European Union amongst themselves and among other key trading partners like Korea, Vietnam and Japan poses fresh challenges to countries like India. It therefore would be best if India takes an integrated approach rather than an ad-hoc approach while negotiating new FTAs or re-negotiating old ones.
Even though the textile and clothing sector is well placed to meet with the vision of our Hon’ble Prime Minister to provide employment, promote inclusive growth, empower women and contribute to the development of Tier 2 & Tier 3 cities, Shri R K Dalmia emphasised that considering the infrastructural disabilities, cascading effect of un-rebated taxes, high cost of inputs and preferential benefits granted to our competitors, the government has to play an important role by continuing the export benefits for some more time.
The textile and clothing exporting sector generated 43% of the total employment in 2014 and going by the Hon’ble Prime Minister's announcement that the government incentives will be linked to "Generation of Employment", the Textile & Clothing Sector with its proven track record of creating employment is ideally placed to get the maximum benefits.
The Chairman mentioned that the Government policies need to ensure that all fibres should be available at par or below international prices, re- activate the TUF Scheme, include Cotton Yarn in the MEI Scheme besides including Dyed/ Printed Fabrics & Made-Ups exported to various markets especially the Sub-Saharan African Countries. The government also needs to include certain types of knitted fabrics which have been excluded from the list of items exported to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka.
Concluding his speech, Shri R K Dalmia said that the industry needs to accept that greater use of technology is not only shrinking markets, product cycles, deadlines, but is also simultaneously providing all of us with newer platforms for reaching out to our customers worldwide.
Photo Caption: Mr. R.K. Dalmia, Chairman -TEXPROCIL
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