The Central Government has revoked anti-dumping duty (ADD) on viscose staple fibre (VSF), excluding bamboo fibre, falling under tariff item 55041000 of the First Schedule to the said Customs Tariffs Act, originating in or exported from the People’s Republic of China and Indonesia.
The Indian textile industry had been demanding for the same for quite a long time. And now the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance has issued a notification in this regard.
T. Rajkumar, Chairman, CITI said that this will make VSF raw materials available at internationally competitive prices in India and facilitate the Indian MMF sector to become globally competitive.
He said that this decision will also promote ease of doing business in India and generate investment and employment in the VSF and MMF textile value chain.
The VSF value chain was facing a shortage of viscose fibres as the supply was restricted to only around 200 spinning mills, while the polyester fibre was made available freely across the segments.
He also stated that the VSF was not made available for the MSME segment and thus greatly affected the power loom and the MSME garment sectors. Besides, he also added that the decision would benefit the MSME segments to a great extent.
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Chairman, CITI pointed out that the Government has already announced game-changing schemes like Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme for the Textile Sector.
Under PLI, the Government has identified 42 HS Codes MMF apparels, 14 MMF fabrics and 10 MMF Technical Textiles products. He stated that as a majority of these products comprise viscose and its blended textiles, the ADD removal would facilitate achieving the vision of creating 40 to 50 world champions in the MMF products.
“The VSF spinning segment has been facing severe challenges due to the duty-free import of VSF spun yarn from the ASEAN countries though it benefited the power loom and the downstream sectors. Over 2 lakh power looms in Tamil Nadu have migrated to VSF fabric production in recent years and the duty removal would encourage the power looms in Tamil Nadu and other parts of the country to achieve an exponential growth rate,” he said.
This decision is in line with its long-term policy for the Indian textile and clothing industry to achieve the ambitious target of US $ 350 billion by 2024-25.
The global consumption of man-made fibres is increasing very rapidly and India’s domestic fibre consumption ratio at present is 65:35 between natural fibres and man-made fibres; however, it is opposite with the rest of the world.
The Government’s decision will align domestic VSF prices with global prices, which will make the entire Indian VSF textile value chain globally competitive and help boost production and exports.
“Unlike other manmade fibres, the VSF produced by a single indigenous manufacturer was very expensive to the tune of Rs. 20 per kg, though recently the domestic manufacturer reduced the price to match with the international price to a certain extent. The industry started facing shortage of viscose fibres as the supply was restricted to only around 200 spinning mills, while the polyester fibre was made available freely across the segments,” said Ashwin Chandran, Chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA).
Bharat Tex Special Report 2026 
