An abnormal increase in cotton yarn prices recently has significantly affected the knitwear garment sector of Tirupur, and has increasingly become a big concern for the sustainance of all stakeholders? units of the garment sector.
Heads of the various garment associations held a meeting on Tuesday to thrash out modalities to arrest rising cotton prices, said A Sakthivel, president, Tirupur Exporters? Association (TEA).
After hearing the views and deliberations, all associations unanimously passed the following resolutions mainly to protect the textile industry which provides employment in large numbers in the country ? Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) should sell cotton only to actual users and not to the traders; as cotton exports have already crossed 90 lakh bales, cotton exports should be suspended for 3 months; yarn exports registered with DGFT in 5 months alone touched more than 590 million kgs and in fact, the Cotton Yarn Advisory Board actually estimated only 1,000 million kgs of cotton yarn exports for the whole year. Mill associations such as SIMA and TASMA have been asked to advise their members to reduce the cotton yarn prices by R8-10 per kg, rolling back to last month?s price.
According to Sakthivel, the associations have also decided to send requisition letters to the Centre to protect and help the value-added sectors of the textile industry by implementing the requisitions. If the government does not concede to the requisitions, the associations will decide the next course of action at the next meeting.
The associations have appealed to the Central government to implement free trade agreement (FTA) with the EU at the earliest so that the exports from Tirupur will increase.