Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA), President Mr. A. Sakthivel today participated in the Pre- Budget Consultations meeting hosted by union finance minister, Mr. Arun Jaitley in New Delhi.
Mr. Sakthivel submitted there a memorandum containing three major issues related to textile, hosiery and garment sectors for the attention of the Finance and other ministries. The issues are import of specialty Fabric using EXPORT PERFORMANCE CERTIFICATE, extension of Rupee Export Credit at 3 per cent interest rate subvention and increase the TUFS Subsidy for Garmenting machinery.
He said as the cost of fund is on higher side and also to encourage more number of exporters entering into garment field, the TUFS subsidy for exporting units should be increased and by this way, interest subsidy should be higher from 5 per cent to 8 per cent and Capital subsidy from 10 per cent to 15 per cent.
Mr. Sakthivel said that the Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) is the rule of the nation, also pronounced by the Supreme Courte and in view of this, all processing units should have either IETPs or the group of units establish CETPs.
At present, CETPs / IETPs are not considered for support under TUFS. As CEPTs and ITPEs are important as like other process in textile, “we request to extend TUFS for CETPs and ITPEs also and those should be provided with 50 per cent subsidy mainly to modernize the plans which is need of the hour to the textile industry, Mr. Sakthivel felt.
TEA President in his memorandum also pointed out that Garment exporters are now facing problems due to non-availability of certain specialty fabrics and the garments made out of this fabrics have good market internationally. “We wish to note that the duty free entitlement for import of trimmings and embellishments and other goods used by the readymade textile garment sector for manufacture of garments for export was increased from 3 per cent to 5 per cent in last Union Budget and also forced import of sample fabric of total length upto 1000 meter without payment of custom duty during one financial year”
It is to be noted that under the EXPORT PERFORMANCE CERTIFICATE SCHEME, garment sector utilized only rupees 727 Crore against 2,712 crore for 3 per cent of FOB value of garment exports at rupees 90,402 crore in 2013-14.As the duty free import percentage has been increased to five percent from July 10, 2014 onwards, the non-utilization value could be still on higher side and therefore, to utilize the given facility out of 5 per cent, a maximum of three per cent of the license may be allowed for import of fabrics without keeping restriction of 1000 meter, Mr. Sakthivel said.
He also demanded that the processing sector should be upgraded with latest state-of-art machinery to manufacture quality garments and fulfill the requirements of foreign buyers. The sector should be provided with either TUFS subsidy or environment ministry subsidy. “We request to increase the subsidy from 5 per cent Interest Reimbursement and 10 per cent Capital subsidy to 8 per cent Interest Reimbursement and 25 per cent Capital Subsidy respectively” Mr. Sakthivel added.
