Indian textile industry has welcomed the announcements made by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to provide relief not only to the common man, but also to the manufacturing sector from the inflationary trends impacting prices.
The Government recently announced additional fertiliser subsidy to Indian farmers and slashed the prices of petrol and diesel by Rs.9.5 litre and Rs.7 per litre, respectively.
These steps will provide much-needed relief to the common man suffering from the rising cost of living due to the increasing inflation.
The removal of Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on Elastomeric Filament Yarn (EFY) will also help the Indian textile and apparel industry in enhancing its competitiveness in the global markets.
The EFY production in the country is very limited and usage of the same in the dress materials, especially denim products, further creates value addition in our textile products and increases our exports by many-folds in the denim segment.
T. Rajkumar, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), stated that the reduction in excise duty on petrol and diesel has come as a big relief to the textiles and clothing industry, which is presently passing through an unprecedented rise in cotton prices.
This central excise reduction on fuel has come as a great relief and directly addresses the logistics costs across the value chain of this geographically dispersed textile industry in India.
Cutting the customs duty on plastic product raw materials and their intermediaries, calibrating reduction in customs duty on raw materials and intermediaries for iron and steel and also the reduction of import duty on some raw materials of steel are other welcome steps.
These measures would help the textile machinery, spares and accessory manufacturers to reduce the price that would benefit the textiles and clothing industry at large.
Ravi Sam, Chairman, The Southern India Mills Association, also welcomed the Governments’ decision and said that these steps would greatly help the textile and apparel industry to reduce the transport cost as different manufacturing segments in the value chain are scattered across the nation.