Indian textile industry monitoring FTA negotiations with Canada

India and Canada are negotiating a free trade agreement to boost bilateral trade and Indian textile industry has given its suggestions on various rules related to the agreement. Conditions of the proposed FTA will determine if it will be helpful in getting more export orders or not. Currently India’s apparel exports to Canada are negligible. 

Recently, officials from the Indian ministry of commerce and industry organised a consultation on the proposal. The representatives of textile industry, including the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, clarified their stand. CITI has given some suggestions on rules of origin and product specific rules. 

The FTA can be expected to boost India’s exports to Canada. India’s share in Canada’s total apparel imports was just 3.6% during January-September 2022. Canada imported apparel worth $9.192 billion in the same period and its imports from India were merely $330.895 million which is negligible. However, India was among the top five suppliers for Canada. China, which had a lion’s share of 31.16% ($2.864 billion), topped the supplier’s list, according to Fibre2Fashion’s market insight tool TexPro. 

Canada’s home textiles imports were at $1.918 billion in the first nine months of this year. India was the third largest supplier of home textiles to Canada with a share of 13.26%, which amounted to $254.527 million. China exported home textiles worth $747.891 million (38.98%) to Canada in the same period.