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Tiruppur lauds duty waiver for cotton
The Tiruppur cotton textile industry welcomes the extension of cotton import duty exemption to December 31, aiding recovery from US tariffs.
The cotton textile industry in Tiruppur has lauded the Union finance ministry’s move on Thursday to extend the cotton import duty exemption window till December 31 from the initial date of September 30in line with the appeal made by local textile industry assocations.
“The extension has come as a timely relief for the textile industry, which was severely impacted by the sudden imposition of an abnormal 50% tariff by the US on Indian goods,” said the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA).
The predominantly cotton based textile industry in Tiruppur had said that exempting 11% import duty on all varieties of cotton from 19th August to 30th September was not enough and had appealed to the Union government for a further time extension since the normal lead time required to import cotton is around 3 months.
“This is a welcome move by the government. This would stabilise the cotton prices in India to be at par with international prices,” said N Thirukumaran, general secretary, Tiruppur Exporters Association (TEA) and chairman, Esstee Exports India Pvt Ltd.
SK Sundararaman, chairman, SIMA and Ravi Sam, Vice-Chairman, The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other Union ministers to enable the textile exporters, not only to meet the existing export commitments but also to grab the summer market opportunities.
They acknowledged how it might impact cotton farmers. However, it was noted that the 11% import duty was imposed at a time when India was exporting around 30–50 lakh bales (170 kg each) of cotton annually. “Currently, cotton production has fallen below 295 lakh bales against an industry requirement of about 318 lakh bales, as estimated by the Committee on Cotton Production and Consumption (CoCPC),” SIMA said.
“This has resulted in the lowest closing stock in history; leading to a shortage of raw material that could severely affect the highly capital-intensive cotton value chain, which provides direct employment to nearly 35 million people. It is essential to make the cotton available at an internationally competitive price for the industry to grow and fully consume the home-grown cotton and also enable the country to export the cotton when the production becomes surplus…It may take 5–7 years for the country to become self-sufficient in meeting its cotton requirements; hence, duty-free import and export of cotton would serve as a win-win strategy for both cotton farmers and the industry.”
