Chennai: The government has exempted polyester staple fibre, filaments and spun yarn imported under the Advance Authorization Scheme from Quality Control Order. The industry hopes that this will improve the export performance of man-made fibre textiles and products.
The government earlier in March had provided the same exemption to Viscose Staple Fibre as well.
The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers had issued a Quality Control Order for Polyester Staple fibres, various filament yarns and spun yarn in April 2021. The order for fibre came into effect from July last year and for filament and spun yarn from October last year. This mandated every user to purchase the raw materials only from BIS licence holders, both from the domestic and international markets.
Though the domestic manufacturers had obtained BIS licence, the applications submitted by several foreign manufacturers have been pending before the BIS authorities for inspection and approval. This severely affected the business of exporters, who use specialty fibres, filament yarns and spun yarns to produce goods for global brands as these raw materials are not manufactured in the country.
According to The Southern India Mills Association, this had seriously impacted the export performance of the MMF value chain. Similarly, the QCO issued for Viscose Staple Fibre had been affecting the entire VSF value chain.
Acting upon the representations made by the industry, the government has exempted imports made under Advance Authorization Scheme.
Under the scheme, the users are bound to adhere to pre-import conditions, including usage of the imported fibres only for export purposes. The period for fulfilment of export obligation also has been reduced from 18 months to six months for all types of MMF imported under the scheme.
“The announcement has given a relief to the MMF textile products exporters enabling them to improve their export performance that had been significantly affected in the last two years,” said Sundararaman K S, chairman of SIMA.
SIMA also has been asking the government to facilitate smooth supply of raw materials at an internationally competitive rate to achieve a sustainable growth rate, both in domestic and export markets. This would help the textile business grow to $350 billion from $160 billion currently and exports from $35 billion to $100 billion, it said.
