The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has cautioned the government to tread carefully while negotiating for the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade agreement and not to cede space to China in the global textiles and clothing (T&C) sector.
“India’s trade deficit with China in the textiles and clothing sector is likely to be widened once RCEP is concluded and could be detrimental for its domestic textile manufacturers,†said CITI Chairman Sanjay Jain.
The textile industry body said that while the ongoing US-China trade war presents an opportunity to Indian textile manufacturers to enhance their exports to the US, China too would be looking for new markets for its products.
“The RCEP trade scenario reveals that India must tread cautiously, particularly with China, as half of India’s T&C trade in RCEP is with China, with which it had a big trade deficit of almost $1 billion in 2018.â€Â