With the objective of
highlighting the issues
and challenges being
faced by the textile and
clothing industry as well
as the urgent policy
interventions required
to address the same, all
the stakeholders of
Textile and Clothing
Industry, viz., National
Textile Associations,
Export Promotion
Councils (EPCs) as well as regional level textile and clothing industry
associations representing the entire textile value chain have formed a
steering committee called the “National Committee on Textiles & Clothing
(NCTC)” under the chairmanship of Shri T Rajkumar, Chairman CITI.
The NCTC comprises major textile associations and EPCs at the regional and
national level like TEXPROCIL, AEPC, PDEXCIL, SRTEPC, CITI, CMAI,
ITTA, AFI, AMFII among others.
The NCTC is now meeting regularly to discuss various issues ranging from
fibres to fashion to arrive at a common understanding on both short term
and long term policy measures for domestic and international markets.
For the purpose of long term policy measures, the NCTC has decided to hire
the services of a competent agency to undertake a study and recommend
various policy measures to enable the entire textiles and clothing value chain
covering all types of fibres and products to remain globally competitive and
achieve a sustained growth rate, both in the domestic and international
markets.
In the meanwhile, a list of short term policy measures has been finalised and
the NCTC delegation led by Shri T Rajkumar, Chairman CITI met the
Hon’ble Ministers for Finance, Commerce and Textiles respectively to
apprise them of the grim situation facing the T&C sector.
The Hon’ble Minister of Textiles, Smt Smriti Zubin Irani assured the NCTC
that all necessary action will be taken for the revival of the industry.
The NCTC thanked HMoT for recommending to the Ministries of Finance
and Commerce, issues like extending 1-2 years moratorium or liquidity
support for the financially stressed textile units; Slotting recycled PSF under
5% GST rate; and the CCI cotton MSP operations to factor in international
and domestic prices to protect the interests of farmers and cotton textile
industry
The NCTC delegation led by Shri T Rajkumar, Chairman CITI also met the
Hon’ble Minister of Finance, Smt Nirmala Sitharaman on 14th October 2019
and submitted a Joint Memorandum apprising her about the urgent need to
release the pending claims under RoSL/RoSCTL Schemes; urging the banks
to upload documents expeditiously for release of TUFS Subsidy; extending
the benefit of enhanced MEIS & RoSCTL till RoDTEP comes into force;
reducing the margin money for working capital from 25% to 10% and the
Debt Equity Ratio norm from 1:1.33 for the entire textiles and clothing
industry; extending 5% Interest Subvention for all textiles and clothing
export products; and also all the benefits announced under special garment
export package (SPELSGU) especially the 80JJAA income tax and enhanced
EPF benefits extended for new jobs.
The NCTC proposed a slew of short term policy measures to the Hon’ble
Minister of Commerce, Shri Piyush Goyal at a meeting held on 15th October
2019 which covered issues broadly related to GST, the Ease of Doing
Business and RCEP negotiations.
The measures suggested were imposing adequate protection/safeguards
measures on the imports of fibres, yarns, fabrics, readymade garments and
used cloths especially from China, Bangladesh and Indonesia; extending the
benefits of enhanced MEIS & RoSTCL till RoDTEP comes into force;
consider including anti-dumping duty in the duty drawback calculation and
enhance the rates appropriately; restructure the obligation period under the
EPCG scheme; extend the remission of duties and taxes under the proposed
RoDTEP scheme for the entire textile value chain viz. all fibres, yarns,
fabrics, made-ups, garments, and all types of Technical Textiles. It was also
suggested that in India’s list under RCEP all textiles and clothing items must
be kept in D Category for 20 years with certain sensitive items under
exclusion list.
The Joint Memorandum submitted by NCTC hopes to receive valuable
support from the Ministries to mitigate the challenges presently faced by the
T&C Industry and boost exports.
Source: Business Today, India Tuesday, 24 December 2019