Ludhiana: For fourth month in a row the exports of readymade garments from India has fallen as compared to last year.
As per the statistics released by the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics (DGCI & S), the exports of readymade garments from India in November fell to $1,055.82 million, which is 6.52% lower than November 2018, when the exports were $1,129.50 million.
City garment exporters are a worried lot on the development and are urging the central government to take corrective measures like hiking incentives on garment exports, expediting GST refunds, etc. In the wake of the situation, garment exporters of the city will organise a meeting on Monday to discuss their next course of action.
Giving more information, Harish Dua, president of Knitwear and Apparel Exporters Organisation, said, “This is very worry-some situation as not only the readymade garments’ exports have fallen for four months in a row, but this is the worst fall in these four months as in earlier three, 2.44% was the highest decline, which was observed in August and after that in September and October the decline was 2.17% and 2.11%, which now has gone up threefold to 6.52%. This the fallout of rising cost of production, delay in processing of GST refunds, failure of the central government to introduce new incentives for garment exporters.”
Dua added that, “The situation is not going to improve until the Centre steps in and along with expediting the process of claiming GST refunds, introduces new incentive schemes for the garment exporters, who despite facing so many crises are still holding on to their nerves. We have called a meeting of leading city exporters of the region on Monday in Ludhiana, in which we will discuss what can be done by exporters at their own end to tackle the situation.”
According to Narinder Chugh, executive council member of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, “For the past few months garment exporters of Ludhiana are passing through turbulent times, as on one side our cost of production has risen sharply while on the other we are combating recession and competition too at global levels. The Centre should ensure that the rate of interest on bank loans for readymade garments exporters were lowered immediately and the exporters based in landlocked states like Punjab should be given freight subsidy.”
Published On : 16-12-2019
Source : Times of India
