Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) today said it wants the Centre to resume the stalled Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations with the European Union to facilitate a level-playing field for domestic manufacturers.
In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, TEA said the garment sector has exported ready made garments (RMG) worth USD 16.82 billion in 2014-15, of which USD 7.16 billion worth garment was for the EU, and is still having the potential to enhance exports there.
The EU is a traditional market for garment exporters and out of total garment exports from India, the share of the EU is 43 per cent and over period of time, business relations with European buyers have improved quite a lot and repeated orders have become norms for most garment units, TEA president A Shaktivel said.
"Moreover, the garment exporting units have also elevated their strength to fulfil the customers' stringent quality requirements and being compliance oriented units, we are confident that we can edge over our competing countries and increase our market share significantly once FTA is implemented."
The EU market is playing a crucial role in garment exports and enhancement of shipments to the EU that will directly help creation of more employment in the domestic market, mainly women workers, semi-literate workers from rural areas after fulfilling the "Make in India" concept of the Prime Minister.
"We could also double our exports to the EU in the next three years from the existing level of USD 7.16 billion," he claimed.
"The vision of 'Make in India' is apparently fulfilled by the RMG sector as it is using only a minimal input from imported items and the entire production is taking place in India and also providing employment to lakhs of people mainly women workers and semi literate hailing from rural areas."
"Moreover, Germany, the major trading partner in the EU, was also inclined to have a FTA with India," Shakrivel said and requested the Centre to look into resumption of the FTA negotiations with the EU.
