The Hindu Business Line : Chinese dumping thwarts move to boost bivoltine silk output

THE Government's initiative to boost bivoltine silk output in the country has suffered a setback on account of the continued dumping by Chinese firms that, in turn, has depressed domestic prices.

Admitting that the dumping of Chinese silk has done quite a bit of damage to the India's bivoltine sericulture, Mr P. Joy Oommen, Member Secretary, Central Silk Board (CSB), said "the prevailing low silk prices is prohibiting the farmers from making any fresh investments in producing the bivoltine silk, which is investment intensive."

Bivoltine silk refers to a variety, of which two crops can be taken in a year, while multiple crops can be taken from the multi-voltine variety, which is traditionally grown in India.

Farmers are not coming forward to invest in rearing bivoltine silk worms and the offtake of the seeds, popularly known as DFLs (disease free layings), has dropped by an estimated 20-25 per cent over the last several months, Mr Oommen said. "We expect a 20 per cent decline in bivoltine silk output this year," he said.

"While there is not much evidence of uprooting of mulberry, farmers prefer to wait and watch before they switchover to other crops," he added.

The impact is being felt mainly in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, where the rearing of bivoltine silk was introduced few years back on trial basis. It is in these states CSB with the support of Japanese International Co-operation Agency (JICA) had embarked on a massive programme to promote and boost the bivoltine silk output.

While in the phase II of the JICA-assisted project, several bivoltine silk worm races which can adopt to the tropical climate and the practices to go along with bivoltine sericulture were developed, they were supposed to be popularised on large scale in phase III of the project, which had taken-off few months back.

The five-year phase III project assumes significance in view of the problems faced by the sericulture sector currently and also due to the fact that India plans to raise its bivoltine silk output from the present 833 tonnes to 6,700 tonnes by the end of 10th Plan in 2007.

The current landed price of Chinese raw silk is about $13.5 a kg, as against $22-24 a kg a year ago while the domestic production cost hovers around Rs 1,000 a kg. Imports of Chinese silk are expected to cross 10,000 tonnes this year as traders are stocking the silk in anticipation of some action like a hike in import duty by the Director General of Anti-Dumping.

CSB has taken up the issue of dumping with the Director General of Anti-Dumping and the hearing is expected on Friday. "We have asked the Government to raise the import duty from the present level of 35 per cent to 80 per cent," Mr Oommen said.

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Chinese dumping thwarts move to boost bivoltine silk output