The Ministry of Textiles (MoT) has affirmed that the exports of textile and apparel sector have marginally grown to US $ 39.2 billion in FY 2017-18 as compared to US $ 39 billion in the prior FY.
Ajay Tamta, Minister of State for Textiles further elucidated the General assembly that apart from the slight increase in exports, country’s imports witnessed a significant growth of 17 per cent, reaching to US $ 7.3 billion in the current FY as compared to US $ 6.3 billion in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
He said that the Centre has hiked customs duty from 10 to 20 per cent on various fabrics, apparels, made-ups and carpets to restrict imports of textile and clothing in the nation.
Additionaly, focussing on the cotton manufacturing, Tamta elucidated that the Cotton Advisory Board (CAB) is expecting the cotton production for the current season 2017-18 (October 2017 to September 2018) to be at 370 lakh bales.
“From October 2017 to April 2018, the total amount of cotton exported from India was 51.21 lakh bales,” he said. The minister added, the CAB has calculated that during the current cotton season 2017-18, the export is expected to reach 70 lakh bales by September, a growth of 20 per cent as compared to previous year.
Furthermore, the Parliament of India was also informed by the MoT that the country’s raw silk production is anticipated to touch 38,500 tonnes by the next fiscal year.
Notably, despite many measures taken by the Government to promote silk production, the country still imports silk products from Korea, China and Japan. “The import of raw silk has significantly come down from 2011-12 to 2017-18 registering a deficit of 1971 tonnes due to the boost that was given for the manufacturing of import-alternate Bivoltine raw silk from within the nation,” he concluded.
