Coimbatore: The Southern India Mills’ Association (Sima) on Monday requested the Prime Minister to withdraw the 10% import duty on cotton and cotton waste to ensure competitiveness of Indian textiles and apparel industry in the global market.
Sima chairman Ashwin Chandran said the duty will not help cotton farmers, as 12 to 14 lakh cotton bales are imported, constituting hardly 3% of the Indian cotton produced and consumed. The textile industry has to import extra long staple (ELS) cotton, organic cotton and contamination-free cotton to meet the demands of global customers and apparel segment in domestic market, he said. TNN