Ministry of Textiles of Republic of India : Measures to Curb Imports of Textiles

India's textile and apparel imports stood at USD 7,339 million in 2017-18 as compared to USD 6,293 million in 2016-17.

To curb imports and promote domestic manufacturing, Government carried out an import analysis of textile and apparel imports. Imports of intermediate goods viz. fibre and yarn have a share of 43% (approx.) in India's overall textile and apparel imports. These are raw materials for manufacturing of value added products and imports are primarily need-based.

Government raised the basic customs duty(BCD) from 10% to 20% on:

• 298 man-made fabric(MMF) fabric lines w.e.f. 27^th October 2017
• 5 Silk fabric lines w.e.f. 2^nd February 2018
• 504 lines w.e.f. 16^th July 2018:
  • 22 Fabric lines
  • 383 Apparel lines
  • 75 Carpet lines
  • 9 Made-ups and
  • 15 other lines

Further, Government has imposed antidumping duty on import of linen yarn from China and nylon filament yarn from Vietnam and EU w.e.f. 19^th October 2018 and 6^th October 2018 respectively.

As per India Ratings and Research Agency (Ind-Ra), the outlook for cotton and synthetic textiles is expected to remain stable for the year 2019. This is in view of stable cotton prices and improved consumer spending outlook in key user countries.

During April-October, 2018, rupee has depreciated by 6.7% to 68.8 Rs/USD (average) as compared to 64.5 Rs/USD (average) during April-October, 2017. During April-October, 2018, India's textile and apparel exports stood at USD 22.9 billion as compared to USD 22.3 billion during same period last year.

This information was given by the Minister of State of Textiles, Ajay Tamta, in written replies in the Lok Sabha today.

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