Indian textile industry pitches at BOT meet for raw material security

Indian textile industry has urged the government to take effective steps for stabilising raw material/fibre prices. The industry emphasised on raw material security during a meeting of the reconstituted Board of Trade. Commerce and textiles minister Piyush Goyal said that exports are the core area of focus to make India a developed nation by 2047.

In his opening remarks at the first meeting of BOT Goyal said, “Global confidence in India’s prospects for growth were truly immense and called on the domestic industry to overcome all weaknesses when it comes to grabbing the plethora of growth opportunities available to the nation. The world is already looking at India as a superpower.” The meeting was attended by various state ministers and other senior officials of key line ministries and states, all major trade and industry bodies, Export Promotion Councils and industry associations. There were 29 new non-official members who were also invited for the first time in the BOT meeting. The new BOT has been constituted by merging Council for Trade Development and Promotion with Board of Trade.

Goyal stressed on the need to enter into more free trade agreements with developed nations. He urged participants of the BOT meeting to focus on the possibilities each sector has in FTAs. Concluding his address, the minister said that all the issues raised by the participants will be addressed and the suggestions made by them in the meeting will be considered. The BOT meeting focused on export target setting, the new Foreign Trade Policy (2022-27), and the strategies and measures to be taken to take forward domestic manufacturing and exports.

Representing the textile industry, Narendra Goenka, chairman of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, said that there is a continuous increase in the prices of raw cotton. The trend is expected to continue considering the global shortage of cotton. The crop is under stress this year in Pakistan, Brazil and the US. Plus, the ban on China’s Xinjiang cotton has already disrupted supply chains across the globe.

Goenka added that the government should intervene for regulating export of raw cotton/cotton yarn appropriately, and thereby ensure continuous availability of raw material at a competitive price. He said that the industry will be able to achieve the export target of $17.2 billion for the year 2022-23, in spite of the recessionary trend being felt in most of the garment importing countries.

AEPC chief also pitched for PLI-2, extension of ATUFS, advance authorisation on self-declaration basis, and deletion of condition of making transferee liable and making this applicable to existing scrips under the RoSCTL for garment exports.