The overall textile and garment exports will not only miss the initial official growth target of 10% for 2015-16 but will also fall short of the 5% expansion rate expected, according to Northern India Textile Mills' Association (NITMA).
Sharad Jaipuria, president, NITMA said that the textile industry needs basic raw material cotton at competitive prices to export value added products.In spite of record production of cotton in India, the same is unavailable at competitive prices.
Jaipuria informed that while the CCI,a Central Government undertaking, has already started off-loading small parts of the 86 lakh bales (of 170 kg each) of cotton held by it, the Textile Ministry wants to sell its stock in phases over the remaining five months of the current cotton marketing year ending September to fetch better cotton prices.
The CCI procured the cotton from farmers at a minimum support price, which was much higher than the prevailing domestic prices, earlier this year. So far, CCI has sold only 5.68 lakh bales in the market.
Jaipuria also shared the concern of the industry that the approach to fetch better prices for cotton by the textile ministry has pushed the cotton prices upward in a week's time. It has become unviable to produce and export, giving the private traders an opportunity to hoard cotton to push up the prices even further. The industry is experiencing that despite the recognition of the textile sector's role in the Make in India concept as well as in job creation there is a lack of adequate focus and proper planning in boosting exports.
According to NITMA president, as per the index of industrial production data, the textile segment grew just 2.4% from the April-February'2015 period from a year before. Higher textile exports augur well for the economy as they accounted for 12.6% of the overall exports last fiscal. Textile sector employs 35 million people and is the second largest employers after agriculture.
Source:economictimes.indiatimes.com
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