The Indian Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) has appealed to the Union Textile Minister Piyush Goyal to remove the Customs Duty on cotton as it is mainly the extra-long staple branded cotton and contamination free cotton that are imported.

Chairman of the Council Manoj Patodia, Vice Chairman Sunil Patwari, and Executive Director Dr. Siddhartha Rajagopal met the Minister in Mumbai recently and discussed issues that the industry faced and the growth prospects for cotton textiles.

 

Exports of Cotton textiles (including raw cotton) during 2020-2021 reached USD 10,723 million as against USD 9,799 million in 2019-20, registering 9.43 percent growth.

 

Mr. Patodia pointed out the need for the industry to have cotton at international prices and to promote export of value-added products.

 

He also said the RODTEP rates should be notified at the earliest and RoSCTL rates should be maintained for made ups under the RODTEP scheme.

 

On the Indo-UK Free Trade Agreement, the Council urged the Minister to include textiles and clothing sector upfront in the “pre-negotiation scoping phase” or any envisaged “early harvest” programme to overcome the disadvantage faced by the Indian exporters due to duty concessions already granted by the UK to Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam, Turkey and Sri Lanka.

 

He also sought measures to expedite the Indo- EU Free Trade Agreement to help the Indian exporters overcome the disadvantages of tariff preferences given to competing countries by European Union.

 

Source: thehindubusinessline.com