
Not only apparel exporters but also fabric mills are upbeat about the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement as it allows certain amount of duty-free cotton.
Ravi Sam, Chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) said that allowing import of 51,000 MT of duty-free cotton from January 2023 and 419 MT of duty-free cotton from 29th December to 31st December 2022 from Australia would benefit the cotton textiles value chain in the country that has started facing the shortage of quality cotton with the increased demand. Emphasising that the highly-labour intensive textiles and clothing industry will be greatly benefited by this pact, Ravi was all praises for Hon’ble Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi and Hon’ble Union Minister of Commerce and Industry and Textiles, Shri Piyush Goyal for this historical achievement.
The 11 per cent import duty on cotton and removal of around 10 per cent tariff barrier that existed so far for export into Australia would boost the global competitiveness of Indian textiles and clothing industry.
It is also worth mentioning here that the trade pact with UAE and Mauritius has already started yielding better results and the pact with Australia would provide zero duty market access for several Indian textile goods, especially readymade garments and home textiles.
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