India's apparel and hosiery sector, which has been hit by sluggish exports to the US and UK markets, was shaken again as rising interest rates made loans more expensive. This resulted in a loss of competitiveness in the global market for the apparel and hosiery export sector, causing them to struggle to find funds to meet their capital needs for operations. Many garment manufacturing units were soon classified as non-performing assets by banks due to their inability to repay loans.
The Chairman of India's Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), Saxville, wrote to Finance Minister Mukherjee expressing these concerns. He emphasized that the reality is that the sector has lost its competitiveness in the global market due to the rising cost of interest rates. He appealed to Minister Mukherjee to take appropriate action to restore the competitiveness of the ten thousand garment sector. He sought financial restructuring and an extension of a 2% export credit subsidy to the apparel and hosiery sector.
Saxville reiterated his request to Mukherjee to extend these measures across the entire textile value chain, from contract workers to upstream large-scale sectors. The India Fashion Apparel Export Promotion Council believes that this proposal has no revenue implications since interest will still need to be paid on all loans.
This article is from Fashion Coordination Network (http://www.daban.org.cn). Please credit the source if you reproduce it.