President's Message

President's Message

K. M. Subramanian

A major step by our Association to safeguard Indian Textile Industry - request for imposition of import duty on Ready-Made Garments & Fabrics from Bangladesh.

The duty-free import policy under SAFTA has led to a surge in imports of garments and fabrics from Bangladesh, valued at $114 million in 2020-21, $211 million in 2021-22, and $309 million in 2022-23. This has severely impacted India's textile industry, particularly the MSME sector, leading to reduced market share, declining revenues and significant job losses. The negative impact of this increasing imports from Bangla Desh has been felt by everyone across the Textile Value Chain including Exporters and Domestic Manufacturers.

Bangladeshi manufacturers benefit from lower production costs, subsidies, and cheap and duty-free fabric imports from China, allowing them to produce garments at prices significantly lower than Indian manufacturers. These are shipped into the Indian market DUTY-FREE. This disrupts the entire textile value chain, including spinning, knitting, weaving and garment production.

Under the guidance of our Honorary Chairman Padmashri. Dr. A. Sakthivel Anna, our Association took the initiative of organising a meeting of All Trade Associations of Tiruppur cluster to highlight on this serious problem and discuss on possible solutions and way to move forward. On 28 December 2024, the Tiruppur Exporters Association, conducted the meeting of major trade associations including SIHMA, DAT, KNITcMA, SIIMKA, TEKPA, TEMA, TRSPA and TCEA. During the meeting, in order to bring this problem to the attention of the Central Government, it was decided to pass a resolution unanimously urging the government to impose countervailing or anti-dumping duties on imports from Bangladesh to protect the Indian manufacturers and safeguard the Textile sector’s future. It was further decided that TEA would send a joint representation on behalf of All Associations to the Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Hon’ble Minister of Textiles on the unanimous resolution and requesting suitable action from Government of India. This memorandum has been sent to the concerned Ministers and we look forward to them to address our problem at the earliest.