Textile exports to soon achieve double digit growth: Minister

Deepak Kumar | TheDollar Business 

  The government on Wednesday expressed satisfaction on the current level of textile exports and hoped that the recent initiatives taken by the government would help the industry cloak a double digit exports growth. Inaugurating the three-day India International Garment Fair organised by the Apparel Export Promotion Council, Minister of State for Textiles Santosh Kumar Gangwar said, “I believe that our exports growth, as we have been discussing with the industry, is projected to touch the double digit growth, which would also positively affect our foreign exchange.” India’s textile exports, on average, have been growing at 7-8% annually. However, the government as well as the industry has long emphasised that the industry has the potential to achieve a double digit growth rate. The domestic textiles industry is facing tough competition from relatively smaller exporters such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand. “The developing countries have been making steady progress in their textile production, export and import. India also possesses an immense capacity in this area, and the government has restructured the MEIS scheme keeping in mind just that,” Gangwar said. The government had recently unveiled the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS), under which it had decided to invest 17,800 crore to upgrade the textile industry under Make in India initiative. Responding to queries over free trade agreements (FTAs), Rashmi Verma, Secretary of Ministry of Textiles said, “India doesn’t have FTAs with most of our key markets like the USA, the EU, and Canada. But we are in the process of negotiating with some of these. Representatives from the EU are here; we are also pursuing with the USA and Canada. We are looking at the new markets to have a competitive advantage with the other nations.” The Centre is also working on the new textiles policy that aims to boost exports to over $300 billion over the next decade. “We are in the process of revising the textiles policy. We are doing brainstorming on that, and very soon the revised draft will be placed before the cabinet. We are hopeful that within a month we will come up with the new textiles policy,” Verma said.  

January 20, 2016 | 04:00pm IST