|
India’s apparel exports witnessed a fall of 17% in October to $603 million in comparison to the previous year as the country had to face stiff competition from China, Bangladesh and Vietnam on account of featuring non-competitive fabric pricing in the local market.
Exporters informed that increasing rates of the cotton resulted in the high cost of yarn, and, which in turn made local garments expensive.
Foreign buyers, however, are not able to absorb this increase and are giving contracts to Indonesia, China, Vietnam and Cambodia who are offering apparels at cheaper prices than India.
Rakesh Vaid from Apparel Exports Promotion Council (AEPC) said "Although demand from the US and EU are reviving, we are losing our share to units in neighbouring nations as they have large scale production and also enjoy more incentives than us".
He told the Duty Drawback rates help in neutralizing the instance of service tax, customs duty and central excise duty for export. According to him, these rates have been revised 5 times for the Chinese garment exporters from 11% to 17% in last few months on value of Freight on Board. But, Indian exporters can avail only 8.8% rebate.
Market share of Indian apparel exports in the US decreased by 6.46% to $2.27 billion in the months spanning from January to September 2009 in comparison to $3.07 billion during the same period in 2008.
APEC informed that exports from China, however, grew by 1.95% to $17.23 billion during the first nine months of the year 2009. Bangladesh witnessed a rise of 2.35% to $2.66 billion.
Hindustan Times
December 14, 2009
|
