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The Corporate Affairs Minister, Mr M. Veerappa Moily, has asked the Government to rescind the reduction of import duty on Chinese silk imports.
The Minister said sericulture farmers in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala were quite agitated at the Centre's move.
“They feel this move will severely affect the domestic sericulture activities, as there is every possibility that the prices of both cocoons and raw silk will collapse and the activities will no longer be remunerative,” the Corporate Affairs Minister said in a letter to the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, and the Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister, Mr Anand Sharma.
The duty on Chinese silk import was reduced to 10 per cent from 30 per cent.
Mr Moily said silk growers and reelers have apprehension that huge imports of Chinese silk at reduced custom duty would give stiff competition to domestic silk. Large-scale dumping of duty-free Chinese silk would injure domestic sericulture sector.
“It is also necessary that the duty on imported Chinese silk should continue,” he said.
Karnataka contributes to 70 per cent of silk produced and out of this, 60 per cent is produced in his Lok Sabha constituency Chickaballapur in Karnataka.
Despite all the turmoil in the price fluctuation and turmoil, sericulture farmers have survived till today. But with the reduction of import duty on Chinese Silk, sericulture farmers and the industry is collapsing, he added.
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