Purusottam Ojha, secretary of Ministry of Commerce and Supplies (MoCS) and Qui Guohong, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal today signed an agreement on Letter of Exchange (LoE) regarding zero-tariff on 4,721 Nepali products to Chinese market.

Before the agreement Nepali exportable products were charged 10 per cent to 35 per cent customs duty.

The agreement on LoE will help decrease trade deficit with China, OJha said adding that amongst 4,721 products, 361 products will get direct benefit. The most essential products like carpet, leather, coffee, Juice and silverware will get zero-tariff in the Chinese market, he added.

Earlier, China has announced top provide zero-tariff to Least Developed Countries (LDCs) gradually. Tariff reduction has been a key issue in global trade, the envoy said adding that China is committed to WTO. China is against the trade protectionism as it hurts the global trade, he added.

During the year 2009 bilateral trade registered $414 million. The trade balance is in favour of China. This agreement will help Nepal balance the trade deficit, Guohong said.

Requesting to take part in the trade expos that are going to be held in China he also urged the entrepreneurs to take advantage from the concession.

Welcoming the Chinese gesture, president of Confederation of Nepalese Industries (CNI) and CA member Binod Chaudhary asked China to open up more. We are hopeful that China will gradually provide zero-tariff to 90 per cent goods, he said. Nepal also looks forward to Mutual Investment Agreement with China, Chaudhary added.

Supporting the envoy on development of Export Promotion Zone (EPZ) at Panchkhal, he also requested China to help in it.

The major Nepali exportable products to China are mushroom, orange, cherry, coffee, carpet, garment, beer, incense-sticks, match sticks, apple, tomato, onion, potato, strawberry, honey, cauliflower, brocauli, biscuit, grapes, soap, shampoo, mineral water, textile cotton clothes, wool, brass, fruit juice, leather products, marble, paints, ceramics, jewellery, copper wire, and cable which has been granted free customs.

News Source is http://www.thehimalayantimes.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

Value-Added Textile Forum sources told TheNation that complete strike was observed in Faisalabad as well as in the country by the textile sector while some 10,000 textile mills were totally closed in Faisalabad including 400 stitching, 300 dying, 450 printing, 1,000 hosiery and 350 sizing units.

Rallies were organised in all the four districts of Faisalabad division including Jhang, Chiniot, Toba Tek Singh and Faisalabad districts. Protest were also reported from other major cities including Karachi, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Multan.

Most of the rallies were led by the factory owners. Thousands of textile workers took part in the rallies. The protesters carried banners and placards inscribed with slogans: ‘Save the Textile Industry, Save the Country and Clamp Complete ban on export of cotton and yarn’.

The activists also chanted slogans against Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and President Asif Zardari. The workers warned the government of dire consequences, asserting they would not allow anyone to play with the livelihood of the laborers.

Thousands of workers and owners of value-added textile sector took out protest processions from various places and blocked the city roads. The main protest procession was taken out from Khurrianwala Industrial Estate, which was led by Chairman Pakistan Textile Exporters Association Khurram Mukhtar and Vice Chairman Sohail Pasha and other leaders of Value-Added Textile Forum. The rally demanded total ban on export of yarn with a view to saving the industry from collapse and the workers jobs.

Read more here http://www.nation.com.pk

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

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.

This is printed here http://smetimes.tradeindia.com/smetimes/news/top-stories/2010/Apr/29/

Benefit of four percent duty provided to the exporters of yarn under the scheme named Duty Drawback might be withdrawn very soon, told sources, further telling that the government was willing towards imposing export duty over the cotton yarn.

On 21st April, another scheme of export sop on yarn called as DEPB, Duty Entitlement Pass Book was withdrawn.

Alongside, the exporters of yarn are being urged to register their textile dispatches which the Commissioner of Textile.

Incentives can be available by exporters either under Duty Drawback Scheme or DEPB.

On 6th April, Finance Minister discussed and expressed ways of checking yarn and cotton prices in an inter-ministerial meeting.

Prices of cotton yarn have been raised by more than 30per cent during the previous three months time.

The Karnataka government on Wednesday organised roadshows in Surat to attract national players in the textile industry to participate in the global investors’ meet in Karnataka in the first week of June . Goolihatty D Shekhar, Minister of Textile, Youth Services and Sports in Karnataka was present in Surat on Wednesday afternoon with delegates from the textile ministry. Karnataka had recently announced a new policy ‘Suvarna Vastra Neethi’, with the aim to develop the textile industry in the state.

Senior Manager Girish Kamath said: The state government is ready to provide incentives and concessions like capital subsidy, entry tax reimbursement, land acquisition, power subsidy, among others to the investors setting up units in Karnataka. This will be in addition to the incentives provided under the TUF and SITP schemes. The state government has offered small and big textile industries players to avail these opportunities.

Surat Art Silk Cloth Manufacturers Association president Arun Jariwala said the Karnataka government should start educational courses in the state for the benefit of the youth.

This news printed in Indianexpress or view source of this news www.indianexpress.com/news/karnataka-hosts-roadshow-in-surat-for-its-investor-meet/609744/

Producers were disturbed with the comments given by Kuye explaining that government shouldn’t really rush to disburse textile revival funds. Stating on behalf of NTMA, Nigerian Textile Manufacturers Association, producers said that revival of the sector was needed for which disbursal of textile sector revival funds was important. This was also confirmed by stakeholders and experts of the industry. More than 30% of the problematic situations faced by the textile sector are mainly because of the lacking in finances.

On his way to a trip abroad, Kuye had explained that, With years of experience with me, I can see where the problem actually lies. Therefore my suggestion is that revival packages should not be paid out by the government.

He had also informed that, It should be more than just giving out finances to the textile industry, alongside with it, it’s necessary to make sure that abundant quantity of cotton in grown and the mills are given regular cotton supply