Figures Suggesting That Textiles Exports Are Up Again: Goyal

The country's textile exports have started showing signs of growth after getting impacted by issues like problems with foreign exchange in many countries and large inventories due to the Russia-Ukraine war, Union minister Piyush Goyal said on Saturday.

The textiles minister also expressed hope that exports of cotton and yarn would start reigniting from April.

"Textile exports have a twin problem. Many countries are facing foreign exchange problems post-Ukraine conflict, due to which many destinations have cut down non-essential imports," he told reporters here.

Citing an example, he said an Indian consignment of 100 containers to Egypt came back as the African nation did not have foreign exchange to pay for it.

Many countries are not accepting non-essential goods from outside their territories, he added.

Another reason was that, he said, post-Covid there was a lot of pent-up demand; people were purchasing in large quantities of products like textiles and gems and jewelry.

But soon after the Ukraine conflict, inflation went up by leaps and bounds, and due to the growing inflation and the stress in economies, and 'we saw' inventories getting piled up and people slowed down their procurements, he said.

"I have been engaged with export promotion councils regularly and the latest information is that most of the inventories are now consumed, economies are starting to get back into shape. I think the world has kind of learnt to live with the challenges and crisis...and the figures also seem to suggest that the exports are up again,' Goyal told reporters here.

He was replying to a question about the reason behind the dip in textile exports.

On dip in cotton and yarn exports, he explained that the outbound shipments were 'all-time high' last year due to inflation.

This year due to the international problems, prices are 'quite suppressed' and because of that there was a dip in exports of cotton and yarn.

"We hope to see that also reigniting from April 1," he added.

Readymade garments of all textiles dipped by about 3.5% in January to $1.5 billion. However, during April-January this fiscal, it rose by 5.22% to $13.4 billion.

Exports of cotton yarn, fabrics, made-ups and handloom products dipped by 28.7% to $9 billion during April-January this fiscal.

Further, he said that textile exports from Bangladesh get customs duty concessions in the developed markets because it is a least-developed country.

Now India is following the path of free trade agreements to get duty concessions for its textile industry, which would help boost exports, the minister said.