Garment exporters of Ludhiana in Punjab (India) have urged the Central Government to minimise the lending rates for them. They also sought some new incentives from the Centre to control the declining readymade garment (RMG) exports from the country.
Markedly, a 7.6 per cent decline in RMG exports was reported at Rs. 1,07,698.80 crores during FY 2017-18 as compared to Rs. 1,16,554 crores in the previous fiscal. This was revealed by Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI&S).
Concerned over the grieving situation, the major apparel exporters of Ludhiana attended a meeting organised by Apparel Exporters Promotion Council (AEPC), the official body of Indian apparel exporters, on April 21, 2018, to discuss their next course of action.
“Non-seriousness of the Union Government to solve issues concerning the garment exporters has caused a sharp decline in RMG exports,” underlined Harish Dua, President, Knitwear & Apparel Manufacturers Association of Ludhiana (K.A.M.A.L) while addressing the meeting.
He further added that various incentives and subsidies available to the garment industry either have been withdrawn or reduced and adding to the woes is the absence of new schemes. “Industry needs to have new schemes to encourage the exporters and incentives to support industry people,” said Dua.
Notably, India’s apparel exports observed a massive (YoY) 17.78 per cent decline in March this year. Further, a 3.83 per cent drop in RMG exports to US $ 16.71 billion in the period of April-March 2017-18 was reported as compared to US $ 17.38 billion in the same period of 2016-17.
At the meeting, the exporters voiced that the Government needs to support with the announcement of some exporter-friendly schemes like reduction of the rate of interest on bank loans for exporters to 2 per cent.
Additionally, Centre needs to address the GST refund issue with utmost preference and new schemes for technology upgradation also need to be in place to support the exporters, they cited.
A few days back, AEPC itself expressed concerns over the drastic decline of 9.9 per cent in apparel production during April 2017 to February 2018 period.
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