PTA Users Association disappointed with the New Foreign Trade Policy

New Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) which was announced on 1st April 2015 is a sheer disappointment for the India Textile Industry as nothing substantial has been announced by the Hon. Commerce Minister in the same.

The Textile Industry, which is the largest employment giver in the country after agriculture was expecting a lot from the Union Budget with a hope that some measures will be taken by the Government to boost this Industry especially at a time, when the Union Govt is talking about increasing the Export Target of USD 250 Billion from the present USD 40 Billion, to be achieved by 2024-25. Unfortunately, not a single word on Textile was mentioned by the Hon'ble Finance Minister while announcing the Annual Budget 2015-16.

The Textile Industry Policy which was under pressure from last few months was having a high expectation from the Foreign Trade Policy, but nothing happened.

The Textile Industry while exporting its products was already facing threats from countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Cambodia due to their Duty free access in the major markets of the world, now with removing these incentives will further hurt its competitiveness.

As the country have not been able to complete the Doha Round of trade talks, our Textile Industry is to face at Duty of 15%-30% in the developed markets of US and E.U. against the Least Development (LD) countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Myanmar are at zero Duty. If Doha Round would have been completed, our Duty also would have been come down to single digit.

To promote the export of value added garments to the developed markets, we should initiate signing of Free Trade Agreements (FTA) with EU countries which are in discussion for the last 3-4 years and also we should work towards some agreement with US for Garment Export to the US. This will help in increasing garment export to the large markets and also help in increasing jobs in the country. Thus, we will be able to achieve our ambitious target of US Dollar 250-300 Billion of Textile exports in next 15 years and make our "MAKE IN INDIA" initiative a reality.

The Indian textile industry, which is reeling under the shortage of trained manpower and lack of policy framework, would like to urge the Honl. Commerce Minister to review the Foreign Trade Policy considering the present status of Textile and Man Made Fibre industry in India otherwise the emerging markets across the world would be taken by countries like Pakistan, Vietnam, Cambodia and Indonesia.

Source : Equity Bulls

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