Rupee's appreciation welcome sign for textile exporters:Singh

Mumbai, Aug 9 (UNI) Union Textile Secretary A K Singh today welcomed the appreciation of Rupee against U S Dollar and said it will benefit the modernisation programme of textile manufacturers.

''We should welcome the appreciation in rupee as it has clearly indicated strengthening of Indian economy in the global perspective'' Mr Singh said.

Addressing a press conference to announce forthcoming 'Texsummit 2007' to be held in New Delhi between August 31 and Sepetember 1, Mr Singh said that the summit would deliberate in detail on the issues being countered by the textile industry. The summit will also find answers and solutions to the problems faced by the textile manufacturers.

Mr Singh agreed it was the fact the textile exporters, especially garment and apparel, who faced problem due to sudden rise in the Indian rupee against U S Dollar. He said that the measures recently announced by the centre for the industry were temporary to help the textile exporters to retain their market.

However, Mr Singh strongly emphasised that the textile manufacturers should cosider the benefits of the rise in rupee value in terms of their benefit while importing machinery to undertake modernisation of their units.

According to him, the appreciation of rupee was not only the factor which has been affecting the textile exporters and said that lack of modernisation, high cost of power were major issues putting indian exporters behind in the global competition.

Mr Singh assured that all these issues would be disussed in the texsummit 2007 and said that governent will announce some long term plan during the summit.

The proposed summit is structured on workshops methods to addess the major challenges like raw material availability, appropriate technology, investment climate and opportunities, emerging trade bariers in form of cost. The summit is expected to bring together the who's who of the Indian Textile and Apparel industry along with several economists to help in formulating the structural roadmap for the industry.

UNI