India
India should
target a “realistic” goal of $65 billion worth of textile exports in
the next five years, industry body CII and global management consulting firm
Kearney have said in a report, adding the government’s aim of $100 billion of
exports is a “very steep goal”.
The report also
said India should ink trade pacts with the EU, the UK, Australia, Canada,
Bangladesh and Vietnam. The report, titled Creating a competitive advantage for
India in the global textile and apparel industry, also suggested the government
to tweak the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for technical textiles
and manmade fibres, and expand it to fabric and garments made of natural
products, saying the selected companies may struggle to reach the threshold
investments set in the scheme.
Expediting the
implementation of key legislations such as the adoption of fixed term
employment across states, and policies to encourage indigenous textile
machinery manufacturing in India, are the other suggestions made in the report.
This assumes
significance as commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal has called for
developing 100 Indian textile machinery champions that are recognized across
the world.
Based on
feedback from initial implementation, the government must explore expanding
this scheme to fabric and garments made of natural products as well to support
overall fabric and apparel growth,” CII and Kearney said. Covid-19 has
triggered the redistribution of global trade shares and a recalibration of
sourcing patterns through “China plus one” sourcing, according to the
report.
As per the
report, India must renegotiate free-trade
agreements (FTA) and preferential trade agreements (PTA) with key
markets such as the EU, the UK, Australia, and Canada, and key fabric-exporting
Asian markets such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. In apparel, they have asked to
create FTAs with large importers such as the EU, the UK, and other moderately-sized
markets such as Australia, Canada and Japan. India should strive for lower
duties in Indonesia, currently at 4% duty, in MMF as Jakarta gets about 42% of
its imports from China at zero duty.
Source:
The Economic Times
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