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Union Textiles Ministry is to set up 25 Apparel Parks for Exports (EPF) – on EPZ pattern – across India at/nearer various textiles industry centres, in the next two years. They would be developed to promote the domestic industry to successfully compete and counter the emerging challenges in the global post-multi-fibre agreement regime. Shri R Poornalingam, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, said this in Kolkata.
Addressing a meeting of the Bengal National Chamber of Commerce (BNCC), Shri Poornalingam said, 13 such parks were already taking shape in different States while 10 more would come up within the next one-year. One would be created in Kolkata on specific project proposal submitted by the industry or a group of entrepreneurs and forwarded by the State Government to the Union Ministry. Each one of these parks would get 40 per cent subsidy from the Centre for creation of necessary infrastructural facilities as grant-in-aid, he said, adding that every park would have employment opportunity for about 20 thousand persons.
The Ministry has forwarded the proposal-details on the EPFs to the Union Cabinet following approval by its internal committee. The Cabinet too has approval and a notification on them is likely very soon. The Vision Statement of the Ministry’s specialists’ committee has set a target of exports in the textiles sector worth US $ 80 billion by the year 2010/
There was nothing to fear from the norms of the multi-fibre agreement. On the contrary, the new options had potential to boost India’s current 4% share (20% of country’s total exports) in the global textiles export market up to ten times, Shri Poornalingam said. He underlined the need for greater budgetary allocation to the Textiles Ministry to be used for modernization of units and to meet the ongoing 5% subsidy grant on the rate of interest paid to banks for the long-term capital loans issued by them to the manufacturing units. The Centre, on its part, has doubled the Cotton Technology Mission’s allocation for the current fiscal from Rs.40 crore last year. This amount is being spent on improving the production and processing quality of the nation’s textile goods.
Talking of the involved risk factors, he warned that weakness on the weaving and colouring front of the domestic garment products had to be done away with, quickly and effectively, to capitalize on the renewed scene. And the proposed parks should come up to address these anomalies. Besides China, the industrial counterparts of Bangladesh and Pakistan had similar potential of posing challenges to India’s export in this sector for their traditional familiarity and similar practices vis-à-vis Indian products.
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