“NITMA President, Ashish Barodia said: “On one hand raw cotton exports is being allowed and on the other hand cotton yarn exports is being curtailed. It appears by taking such decisions the government wants the Indian spinning industry to subsidise the garment industry.”..The Indian spinning industry is shocked by such arbitrary decisions, he said, adding that the Indian textile industry has been the victim of various controls which have hampered its growth for many years. “It appears we are once again going back to an era of government controls.”..NITMA fears the Indian spinning industry will lose its export customers to competitors such as Pakistan, China, Indonesia and Bangladesh since it may not be possible to recover them once exports resume after April. “The reputation of our country as a reliable supplier has been dented,” he said…Mr. Bagrodia said there is enough availability of yarn for domestic consumption but higher prices of cotton yarn has been an issue mainly due to the increase in raw cotton prices, which the Indian government has been unable to control. He believes it prematurely allowed exports of raw cotton when there was a huge shortage…”It is interesting to note that the garment industry has not made any noises when synthetic yarn prices have also increased dramatically in the last two months due to similar reasons of increase in synthetic fibre prices,” he said…NITMA said that such policies will deal a death blow to the short term prospects of the cotton spinning industry and long term prospects of the Indian textile value chain including Indian cotton farmers…”With increase in cotton crop expected in the coming years and investments in cotton spinning surely to reduce due to such policies, more raw cotton will have to be exported on one hand and cotton yarn will have to be imported on the other hand to meet the increasing demand of the garment industry,” said Mr Bagrodia…He added that the Indian government needs to reconsider its decision immediately to avoid long term repercussions and further exempt all spinning mills which are under the EOU/SEZ scheme or have export obligations under EPCG or Advance licence”
Date:1/11/2011
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