Dhaka, June 8 : Spinners in Bangladesh are switching to expensive cotton from Australia due to “uncertainties” caused by India’s export restrictions, the New Age newspaper said Tuesday.

Although India last month eased the restrictions partially, the newspaper said the spinners, awaiting arrival of 150,000 tonnes of Indian cotton contracted before a April 21 ban, found the suppliers “prevaricating”.

It quoted Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, a director of Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA), as saying that Indian suppliers were not delivering the negotiated consignments, citing many pretexts.

“Bangladeshi spinners are even ready to pay cotton duty imposed by the Indian authorities but the suppliers are saying that they are unable to arrange stocks,” Ahmed said.

He said due to high costs, Australian cotton earlier did not attract them. But “global supply shortage and restriction on cotton exports by India this year have pushed Bangladeshi spinners to turn to Australian cotton”.

The Indian government had clamped the ban on export of cotton in a bid to control rising prices in the domestic market. It withdrew on May 21 the ban on Bangladesh and Pakistan bound consignments but on condition that export consignments would have to be licensed and contracted before the ban.

Shawkot Aziz Russel, managing director of the Partex Group, which has several spinning units, said no local spinner was sure about delivery of cotton consignments that had been contracted before the ban.

“Indian suppliers are telling us that they are yet to get clearance for shipping cotton to Bangladesh,” said Russel, whose company’s annual cotton procurement from India amounts to around $15 million.

Industry insiders estimate more than 150,000 tonnes of Australian cotton have been booked by Bangladeshi spinners.

“Nearly 30,000 tonnes of Australian cotton have been booked in the last few weeks by the Bangladeshi importers,” said Deepok K. Baral, managing director of DSM Commodities, a leading cotton merchant.(IANS)

Singapore-based Olam, a top global commodity trading house, alone has dealt more than 20,000 tonnes cotton contracts, said Baral, who represents Olam in Bangladesh.

China, Indonesia and Vietnam are major buyers of Australian cotton, but Bangladesh’s annual procurements from Australia remain at 5,000 tonnes or less.

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“In 2009-10, our textiles exports are estimated at $20 billion due to the global economic crisis. We expect exports to be $24 billion for the current fiscal,” an official in the Textile Ministry said.

The textile exports are set to move in sync with the country’s overall exports, which have been growing for six months since November, 2009.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) President A Sakthivel said textile exports can reach $24 billion if the government extends a helping hand to the industry, which is facing problems.

There has been a steep rise in cotton prices, which shot up by over 20 per cent in the past six months, resulting in higher fabric costs.

“The target can be met provided the government continues some regulations on cotton and cotton yarn exports,” he said.

The government has brought cotton exports under the restricted category, with overseas shipments subject to licensing.

US and European markets, which account for 30-35 per cent of textile exports from India, have seen revival of demand across different sectors, exporters said.

The exporters are also exploring new markets like Africa, Latin America and Oceania.

“Orders are improving. Demand for fabric has also gone up,” said Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) Secretary General D K Nair.

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Setting aside political differences, India and Pakistan have decided to change public perception and remove the existing mistrust between the two countries through promotion of trade and business ties.

A two-day meeting of top Indian and Pakistani CEOs and entrepreneurs here, which concluded today, proposed several steps to aggressively pursue the benefits of economic cooperation and identified several sectors having the highest potential for bilateral cooperation.

These include energy, agriculture, health-care, information technology and education.

The conference which was inaugurated by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee yesterday, also urged the governments in both the countries to take all steps necessary to realize the tremendous potential of trade and commerce between the two countries. The meeting noted with concern that South Asia is the world’s least economically integrated region.

Mr Mukherjee, who was the External Affairs Minister when the 26/11, 2008, terror attacks on Mumbai took place, stressed the strong linkage and inter-dependence between peace and sustained economic growth and development of the two countries.

After the two-day deliberations, industry leaders of both the countries agreed that economic cooperation was crucial to peace and progress in a region that has the highest concentration of people living below the poverty line.

The participants said potential existed for the export of home textiles from Pakistan to India while a huge market existed in Pakistan for India’s polyester textiles.

In the field of IT, the fastest growing sector in both countries and the easiest area to cooperate in, India could collaborate with Pakistan by providing skilled resources at competitive rates.

Considerable potential existed for trade in agriculture through streamlining logistics and storage facilities.

The Joint Declaration said India and Pakistan could also collaborate on research for improved yields in, and greater export for, both the countries. In health-care, opportunity for collaboration existed in research and combating the three major diseases in both the countries–heart, diabetes and cancer.

For energy cooperation, the conference said both the countries had huge untapped reserves of energy and collaboration could lend impetus to accelerated growth and development.

In education, given the low average age in both countries (18.2 years in Pakistan and 22.5 years in India), education and skill development was an area of immediate concern and potential.

Cooperation and sharing of strategies in education is the best investment that both the countries can make, the Joint Declaration said.

Committees comprising business leaders from both the countries were established for IT and textile sectors while similar committees for other sectors were in the process of being set up, it added.

News’s Source is http://www.centralchronicle.com/

Exports in 2010-11 have kicked off on a positive note with shipments in April the first month of this fiscal posting a 36.2 per cent year-on-year growth to touch $16.9 billion.

However, the robust growth comes over a low base. Last April, exports had fallen by 30 per cent to $12.4 billion due to the financial crisis.

It is not surprising that the Government did not express any great enthusiasm about the export growth in April.

Don’t get carried away by these numbers. You have an increase in percentage terms (in April) because of the low base (of April 2009), the Commerce Secretary, Dr Rahul Khullar, told reporters here on Wednesday.

Dr Khullar expressed concern over the Euro zone debt crisis and the US’ slow economic recovery. The US and the European Union are traditional markets for Indian exports with the EU accounting for a fifth of total exports, while shipments to the US comprise 12 per cent.

Meanwhile, indicating strong industrial recovery and increasing domestic growth, imports in April recorded a huge 43.3 per cent increase to $27.3 billion from $19.1 billion in April 2009. Oil imports rose to $8.1 billion from $4.7 billion in April last year, while gems and jewellery imports rose 118 per cent, chemicals (47 per cent) and iron and steel (141 per cent).

Revival signal The real interesting story here is the huge surge in imports because I have never seen numbers this large. Over $8 billion jump in a month, Dr Khullar said.

Mr A Sakthivel, President, Federation of Indian Export Organisations, said the import growth is an indication of revival of manufacturing sector which in turn will facilitate exports. Industrial production is registering double digit growth and the growth in March was 13.5 per cent. Industrial growth for 2009-10 was 10.4 per cent.

On the future outlook regarding exports, the Commerce Secretary said, Given the current global uncertainties, I won’t say things are fine on the export front. The situation in EU is certainly not normal. Recovery in US is still far from gung-ho. Therefore, to expect that exports (for 2010-11) will grow at 25-30 per cent is a pipedream. But when you get some degree of greater assurance, that is when jobs are back in the US and the employment situation starts picking up in Europe, then all of us will be able to breathe much easier than we are today.

Exports from sectors like textile (30 per cent growth), engineering goods (up 16 per cent), marine, petroleum products (80 per cent growth), gems and jewellery (36 per cent increase) posted a rise while food grains and handicrafts are faring poorly. Trade deficit for April increased to $10.4 billion from $6.7 billion in the same month last year.

The Government has set an export target of $200 billion for 2010-11, a 13 per cent growth over $176.5 billion in 2009-10.

Mr Sakthivel said, We need to regularly review our strategy in view of the set back in Euro zone. We hope the crisis won’t spread.

Mr Aman Chadha, Chairman, Engineering Exports Promotion Council, said, The weak sentiment in Euro zone is impacting our business. But certain markets like Germany and Italy are better, especially for segments like auto and auto parts. However, it is difficult to predict the future outlook.

India’s exports had contracted for 13 consecutive months starting October 2008. It turned positive in November 2009.

Dr Khullar said the Commerce Ministry is doing a stock-taking exercise in consultation with the industry to understand which sectors need to be incentivised in the forthcoming Foreign Trade Policy supplement to boost exports.

Mr Sakthivel demanded concessional credit to exporters as the interest rate in India is higher than what is prevailing in competing countries.

Article’s Source is http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/

The trade relationship between Nigeria and India has been robust and relatively balanced, says Mahesh Sachdev, the Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, when he led a delegation of some Indian businessmen to visit Jibril Martins-Kuye, the minister of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday.

“India is Nigeria’s second largest trading partner with the total volume of trade according to our statistics nearly $10.3 billion,” he said. “On the industrial front, Indian companies in Nigeria are also second largest in terms of employment of Nigerians.

The first is federal government in terms of employment while the second is Indian community and Indian-based companies taken together today contribute employment of Nigerian people. Among the companies where India has the top position are steel, power sector and pharmaceuticals.”

Mr. Sachdev said this is significant as there are just about 30,000 Indians in Nigeria, less than 1.5 per cent of the total Nigeria population. India is therefore seeking more ways to boost bilateral and financial ties with Nigeria. He was however silent on the usual accusation of injustice against the Indian employers by most Nigerian employees.

“Initially the visit was to four countries but keeping in view our close ties with Nigeria and the fact that Nigeria’s textile industry deals with the Indian community, it was decided that we include Nigeria in the list,” he said. “We are here to showcase our expertise and offer our experience on the very important task to bring Nigeria’s once mighty textile industry and cotton growing population.”

Ravid Vanger, the leader of the delegation and deputy permanent representative of India at the World Trade Organisation, added that India and Nigeria share long commercial ties.

Source of this news is http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Money/5567732-147/nigeria-india_trade_volume_hits_10_billion.csp

Inaugurating ASSOCHAM organized Conference on Banking and Financial Regulators in New Delhi, Chawla admitted that India’s exports in short term to the EU and it’s market could face some problem due to it’s ongoing financial crisis.

Chawla, however, added that the financial turmoil will have “minimum effect” on India’s exports in current fiscal.

“In the long run, however, the impact would be negligible as India has faced bigger crisis of larger volumes without letting it’s economy shrink beyond a point and the current crisis of Europe are going to be a temporary affair,” he said.

“Therefore, there is no need to worry on this front,” assured the Finance Secretary.

On the same day, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told reporters at the sidelines of a conference in the national capital that India has not seen any significant adverse impact from the European debt crisis.

A crisis of confidence in Europe has been triggered by a potential debt default by Greece. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have announced a $1 trillion emergency financial aid package, which is expected to stabilise world financial markets and curb speculative attacks on the Euro.

With the euro gaining USD 1.30 in the late European morning trading on Monday after assurances by European leaders to save the currency from falling apart, Indian firm who export a bulk of their products to the EU heaved a sigh of relief. In many export segments like garments, 50-70 percent of the invoicing is done in euro.

Chawla went on adding that domestic capital market would also absorb the off shoot of crisis, arisen in European markets in the sense that FIIs investments into it would continue and the flight of their capital is unlikely to other destinations.

The domestic economy, according to the Finance Secretary would move on to double digit growth rate but the challenge for policy maker will remain for this growth to be made inclusive.

Source of this news is http://smetimes.tradeindia.com

Federal Adviser on Textile Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig today talked to the Pakistani High Commissioner in India, Shahid Malik, and requested to take up this matter with the Indian authorities to allow shipment of cotton for which sales contracts have been already executed. The Indian government has asked exporters to re-register their valid contracts to allow export of cotton on monthly pro data basis.Dr Baig requested the Pakistan high commissioner to arrange to expedite the process of re-validation of contract as there is a serious shortage of cotton for the textile industry in Pakistan.

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CM Rosaiah inaugurates the park in AP Special Economic Zone

Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah on Monday inaugurated the Brandix India Apparel City (BIAC) located in the Andhra Pradesh Special Economic Zone here.

The state government has allotted 1,000 acres of land for the project while the Centre has provided Rs 36 crore under the Union textile policy.

Speaking on the occasion, Rosaiah asked BIAC, promoted by Sri Lanka-based Brandix group, to fulfil its promise of providing employment to 60,000 people at the earliest.

He said the government was providing training to youth under Rajiv Udhyogsree to make skilled manpower available and had, so far, trained 1 million youth.

BIAC would have 20 apparel manufacturing plants, three fabric mills, eight accessories factories and one finishing plant. The apparel city would attract an investment of $1.2 billion (around Rs 5,400 crore), said Brandix group chief executive officer Ashroff Omar.

While two manufacturing units Brandix Apparel India and Ocean India (US) have already commenced exports, four others are at different stages of completion. These six companies, on completion, would cumulatively invest about $70 million (Rs 315 crore) for factory infrastructure development, he said.

Fabric companies like Fountain Set Holdings of Hong Kong, Pioneer Elastic India Quantum Clothing Indi (UK), DEB Fashion India and Seeds Intimate Apparel India have come forward to set up joint ventures in the BIAC.

Visakhapatnam would attract investments worth about Rs 68,000 crore over the next five years and see 71,000 new jobs being created. During the last three years, Vizag district attracted Rs 17,000 crore in different sectors, said K Lakshmi Narayana, major industries minister.

The Centre has sanctioned six integrated textile parks for Andhra Pradesh, including in Visakhapatnam, said Panabaaka Lakshmi, Union minister of state for textiles, adding this was the biggest textile park in Southeast Asia. This year, the textile Budget is Rs 4,500 crore. The government has allotted Rs 397 crore to promote the integrated textile parks in the country, she said.

Source of this news is http://www.business-standard.com/india/

Agreement of WTO on countervailing measures and subsidies permitted remission or exemption of prior stage cumulative indirect import charges and taxes levied over inputs which are used for the development of export products

Mr. Velayutham told that the government had already handled a blow to trade of exports and had also moved against their own principle of goods exporting without taxes.

J. Thulasidharan, Chairman of Southern India Mills Association explained that duty drawback was actually not an incentive.

It was simply a duties refund and was levied on most export commodities. Prices of yarn were determined by market experts depending upon demand and supply and any kind of moves made for getting artificial control over the intermediary products definitely would bring an effect on the functioning of the whole textile value chain.

In a bid to ensure yarn availability for the domestic textile industry, the government has initiated a range measures including registration of yarn exports, removal of DEPB incentive on yarn exports and test check of fulfilling the hank yarn obligations to ensure adequate yarn supply to handloom weavers, said Lakshmi answering a question raised by T.T.V.Dhinakaran in the Rajya Sabha.

She further stated that Textiles Ministry has received a number of representations from garment and handloom sector regarding supply line distortions and steep increases in yarn prices.

Answering to another question, the minister added that the government has also taken a slew of measures to ensure adequate domestic availability of raw cotton, including imposition of export duty on raw cotton and cotton waste, suspension of Registration of Cotton Exports to ensure a carry forward stock of 50 lakh bales from the cotton season 2009-10.

The government has also intensified monitoring of the cotton situation through the Cotton Advisory Board, Lakshmi said.

An abrupt and abnormal increase in prices of the cotton yarn has hit the domestic textile industry. The government has decided to halt cotton exports from April 19 to ensure adequate availability of raw cotton for the domestic industry.

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