Govt keen on devlp of textiles:Vaghela

Mumbai, Dec 2: The Government is keen to promote development of technical textiles and for this purpose more technical textile machinery will be imported at concessional rates, said Shankersinh Vaghela, Union Minister of Textile.

Addressing the Export Award function, organised by The Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) here last night, Mr Vaghela stated the government had proposals to set up centres of excellence for technical textiles and to create specific standards for technical textile products. Technical Textiles will also be covered under the Technology Upgradation Fund (TUF) Scheme.

In view of the buoyant export trends, the textile industry has set a target of increasing the industry size to USD 85 billion by the year 2010. Earlier, the National Textile policy has envisaged an export target of USD 50 billion. I know that the target is ambitious but I am confident of achieving this with the help of the Indian textile and garment exporting community including representatives of the synthetic textile industry gathered here, Waghela hoped.

Industralist share in the total textile trade of India is at present around USD 2.3 billion and this constitutes only 2.2 per cent of the global synthetic textile trade. The Council has set its vision to achieve a target of US dollar six billion by the year 2010. It is an achievable target and I assure the support of the Government to enable you to achieve this target.

''The conventional textile industry has more or less reached a level of saturation. One sector that holds great promise for us is the technical textiles. The opportunities in this sector have already been spotted and companies have already targeted almost Rs 1000 crore investment in the sector. Another Rs 10,000 crore investment is expected in the next three-four years.

The global market for technical textile product shall touch around USD 130 billion by 2010. Our domestic technical textile market is only around seven billion at the present but has great potential for further growth,'' Waghela pointed out.

SRTFPC chairman R L Toshniwal urged the minister to further increase the allocation for Technology Upgradation Fund and to extend it for further three years. Only two days back the Government has brought a modification in the Draw Back Rates of man-made fibre textiles and fabrics, so that the exporters may take advantage of the Draw Back Duties. Such modification for yarns is still pending. We also requested that the DEPB Scheme should also contine for one more year. I would like to take up again the pending issue of 80HHC with the Government pertaining to the admissibility of profits on sale of DEPB as deduction under Section 80HHC of the Income Tax Act 1956.

The discrimination on the basis of export turnover for the purpose of granting deductions is unjustified and therefore, should be disocotinued, so that the deduction is available to all the exporters irrespective of the export turnover. At least, the deduction should be available on exports up to a turnover of the first Rs ten crore for the Exporters irrespective of their higher performance, urged Mr Toshniwal.

''However, the share of man-made textiles in the total textile exports of India is only 20 per cent, whereas all over the world synthetic forms 60 per cent of the textile trade. This can only be achieved if the government comes out with a mechanism by which the synthetic fibres to exporters are made available at international prices, and all duties and transaction cost are suitably factored in Draw Back Rates. Therefore, there is tremendous opportunity for growth and even if we can increase the share of man-made textile exports to 30 per cent, we would be able to achieve more than 100 per cent growth in export immediately,'' Mr Toshniwal added.

UNI