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Govt informed of exporters’ woes due to rupee appreciation

PTI - New Delhi

Expressing serious concern over appreciation of the rupee, the textiles minister Mr Syed Shahnawaz Hussain said the prime minister and finance minister had been apprised of the difficulty being faced by exporters.

“I have informed the prime minister Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the finance minister Mr Jaswant Singh about the hardships of textile exporters in the wake of strengthening of rupee,” he said here, inaugurating an international garment fair. Exporters have been demanding sops to mitigate the impact of appreciation of rupee vis-a vis dollar as the phenomenon was eroding their competitiveness and affecting exports.

Though India was prepared to face the challenges once the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) gets phased out this year, the government would take appropriate measures to help the industry, he said. For the domestic textiles industry, competition is likely to be fierce once export quotas under the WTO agreement on textiles and clothing are completely phased out from January 1, 2005.

Garment exports went up marginally by 3.24 per cent to US$ 3.31 billion during April-December 2003 as compared to US$ 3.20 dollar during the same period of the previous year. Conceding that India had been able to capture only 1-2 per cent of the global textiles market, Mr Hussain said the domestic industry had gradually matured and international bigwigs had expressed interest in Indian textile products. “I will take necessary steps to ensure that the ‘feel-good factor’ gets reflected in the textile industry as well,” he said.