Scrap excise duty, say synthetic textile firms

The industry body for synthetic textiles has requested the Textiles Ministry for a break from excise duty on domestically-produced synthetic yarn, which it says is losing market share to cheaper imported yarn from China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Anil Rajvanshi, Chairman, Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council, met Union Textile Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar earlier this week to make a case for scrapping the excise duty.

In a letter later submitted to the Ministry, Rajvanshi said that the Indian “manmade fibre industry is passing through a tough phase as the substantially high excise duty provides edge to Chinese producers to dump polyester fibres in India.”

According to him, imports of fibres, filament yarn and spun yarns of polyester increased over 18 per cent in 2014-15 compared to the previous year, to $825 million from $698 million in 2013-14. These imports, predominantly from China, amounted to over ₹5,000 crore.

The excise duty, the council said, is unfair discrimination between cotton and synthetic fibre and is distorting the textile market in favour of cotton, which is the opposite of the global trend.