Govt confident of achieving $18 bn exports in FY13

Despite declining volumes of apparel exports

to the US and EU, the government is confident that the industry will achieve the $18 billion (about Rs 100,000 crores) target during the present fiscal. In the medium term, the government has set an ambitious target of $50 billion dollars (about Rs 2,77,000 crores) by 2015. Speaking after a business session organised by Apparel Export Promotion Council and attended by over 60 manufacturers, Union Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, V Srinivas said the industry should take advantage of the duty benefit to Japan and EU markets, and focus on market penetration to the existing markets, especially Japan.

The government had placed a special focus on Japanese market as the tax rate had been reduced to zero from 20 per cent after the two countries had signed FTA in 2011. “We should be looking to corner some of the share of our competitors like China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia, and conversion of value-added products. Presently, only 45 per cent of the textiles and cotton export goes in the form of apparel while the balance is exported in fabric form,” he said. Srinivas said the government was committed to strengthen programmes like integrated skill development, improving the fabric quality and enhance the processing capacity.

India had exported apparel, both knitted and woven to the tune of $11.6 billion (Rs 64,322 crores) in 2010-11 and during 11-12 the exports touched $13.6 billion (Rs 75,413 crores). “Increase of one billion dollar in apparel export leads to creation of 1 million jobs. To enable expansion the government had been striving to aggregate the fragmented industry and enhance its production capacity,” he said.