Apparel sector is eyeing the export potential for PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) kits and appealed for lifting the ban on exports.

Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman A Sakthivel, while highlighting the sector’s agility in switching over to production of PPE kits from scratch to 8 lakh units per day in less than four months, said the sector demonstrated extraordinary enterprise and nimbleness to rejig large production facilities to manufacture PPEs amidst national lockdown, which disrupted material, labour and supply chain.

Urging the government to consider lifting the export ban, Sakthivel, in a letter to Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani and Union Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal said countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and others had lifted the ban on PPE exports and were receiving huge orders.

“We may lose out to competing countries if the ban is not lifted. The production is more than sufficient to cater the domestic market needs. The US and Europe are potential buyers of these kits.”

“Pakistan received $100 million export orders last week; this is expected to increase five-fold. Bangladesh has also aggressively protected global business from countries such as the US, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Kuwait while tackling the pandemic.”

“The Embassy of Vietnam in Washington has established a channel of communication with the Center for Disease Control and Prevention and the US Department of Health and Human Services. The US Federal Emergency Management Agency has created an ‘air bridge’ to get medical supplies like 2.25 million PPEs exported from Vietnam quickly”, the AEPC Chairman said and added: “India is also part of the US ‘air bridge’ initiative. We should not lose out on an attractive global business opportunity. India should consider the economic and political dividends that timely PPE exports would generate in the post Covid era.”

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