The Indian Textiles Ministry targets USD 32 bn of exports in 2011-12

The Indian Textiles Industry has an overwhelming presence in the economic life of the country. Textiles sector contributes 14% of industrial production, 4% of GDP and 10.63% of country’s export earnings. It provides direct employment to over 35 million people, which includes a substantial number of SC/ ST, and women. The Textiles sector is the second largest provider of employment after agriculture.
Indian Textiles industry was growing at 3-4% in the last 6 decades. Under 11th Five Year Plan (FYP) it was projected to accelerate to a growth rate of 16% in value and should reach the value of USD 115 billion (exports USD 55 billion and domestic market USD 60 billion) by 2012.  Exports are likely to reach USD 32 billion in 2011-12 and domestic market USD 55 billion.
Key Achievements of the Ministry
Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS):  Government has enhanced the 11th Five Year Plan allocation for TUFS from Rs. 8000 core to Rs. 15,404 crore.  TUFS has helped catalyse an investment of Rs. 2 lakh crore since its inception.  The additional allocation is expected to catalyse an additional investment of Rs. 46,900 crore.
E-Marketing:  The e-marketing platforms have been developed by the Central Cottage Industries Corporation of India (CCIC), and the Handicrafts and Handlooms Export Corporation of India (HHEC).
National Fibre Policy:   The Draft fibre policy has been finalised and placed in the public domain.
Marketing Initiatives:  Niche handloom and handicraft products were given a marketing platform through 600 events all over the country.  These generated a business of over Rs. 350 crore.
National Textiles Corporation:  NTC has modernised 17 mills.  New Marketing initiative include new branding drive with new logo.
Skill Development:  Scheme on Integrated Skill Development Scheme targets to to train approximately 26.75 Lakhs persons over a period of 5 years (2.70 Lakhs persons in first two years); cover all segments under the ambit of the Ministry including: Textiles and Apparel; Handicrafts; Handlooms; Jute; and Sericulture. Scheme proposed for implementation under the 12th FYP with allocation of Rs. 3500 Cr. A target of 1.5 lac workers would be achieved by March 2012.
Credit Linkages:  25,000 Artisan Credit Cards have been issued to artisans under the Credit Guarantee Scheme, over 1,65 lakh additional applications have been forwarded to banks for consideration.
Welfare Schemes:  Under Handloom Weavers’ Comprehensive Welfare Scheme, 16,11 lakh weavers and ancillary workers were given health insurance coverage and 5-10 lakh life insurance coverage.  Under the Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Bima Yojna, 7.33 lakh artisans were given health coverage.

Financial package for handloom sector for waiver of overdue loans.
During the Budget speech of 2011-12, the Finance Minister had announced that the Government of India would provide Rs 3000 crore for implementing the financial package for handloom sector for waiver of overdue loans. The Financial Package has been approved by the Government with an outlay of Rs. 3884 crore.  This includes onetime waiver of overdue loans and interests as on 31st March, 2010, for loans disbursed to handloom sector.  The Financial Package is expected to benefit about 3 lakh individual handloom weavers and 15000 cooperative societies, and they will be able to access institutional credit once again.

Comprehensive package for handloom weavers
In order to address the two critical needs of cheap credit and cheap yarn, the Government has now approved a comprehensive package for handloom weavers.  The brief details of interventions approved by the Government are as follows:
(i) Credit to handloom sector:  The Government will provide assistance for the following:
Margin money assistance will be provided @ Rs.4200 per weaver to individual weavers, their self help groups and joint liability groups by the Government so as to enable them to get fresh loans from the Financial Institutions. Interest Subvention of 3% per annum for 3 years.  The loans extended by the Financial Institutions to the handloom weavers and their cooperative societies will be guaranteed for 3 years by the  Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE)
(ii) Yarn supply to handloom sector:  To address the issue of yarn availability at reasonable prices 10% price subsidy on silk and cotton hank yarn will be provided by the Government and  enhancement of  the freight reimbursement for transportation of different types of yarn used by the handloom sector in order to offset the increase in fuel cost.
The projected financial outlay involved in the implementation of the comprehensive package during the current year and the 12th Plan period is Rs. 2362.15 crore.  The entire funding will be provided by the Government of India.

Other initiatives in Handloom sectors
The Third All India Handloom Census (initiated in 2009-10) has been successfully completed.  It is ascertained in the Census that nearly 43.31 lakh identify cards (PICs) to all of the handloom weaving and its ancillary activities.  Government has issued Photo identity cards (PICs) to all of them.

The Schemes of the Government of India have played an important role in support and preservation of traditional skills and to facilitate the market linkage for the benefit of the handloom weavers.  In addition, 20 Pilot Projects are successfully running in major handloom states all over the country.  541 clusters and 1788 Group Approach Projects have also been developed.  A budgetary support of Rs. 2.55 crore has been released to provide the weavers with margin money during the year 2010-11.  Each weaver is provided with Rs. 6000 as margin money.  To protect the distinctive identify of handloom products the Handloom Mark and Geographical indication (GI) registration has been provided to traditional handloom products from specific regions.
21 new Textiles Parks under SITP
Government has sanctioned 21 new Textiles Parks under the Scheme for Integrated Textiles Parks with a project cost of Rs. 2100 crores to be implemented over a period of 36 months. The new Textiles Parks would leverage an investment of over Rs. 9000 crores and provide employment to 4 lac textiles workers. Government sought to ensure balanced regional development, promote textiles industry in North Eastern States and in States where the industry is in a nascent stage of development and promote textiles parks in cooperative & handloom sectors. The product mix in these parks would include apparels and garments parks, hosiery parks, silk parks, processing parks, technical textiles including medical textiles, carpet parks, powerloom parks.

Achievements of National Textiles Corporation in 2010-11

·         A production value of Rs. 786 crore against Rs. 541 crore in the last year, showing an increase of 45 per cent.

·         Sales  turnover has gone up by 39 per cent from Rs. 487 crore to Rs. 675 crore.

·         The net profit, including income derived out of sale assets, stands at Rs. 1,366 crore up from Rs. 103 crore.

·         As of March 1, 2011 the total sale of assets was concluded at Rs. 6317 crore, of which Rs 2,011 crore were realised during the year.

·         New  brand RAASA was launched by the company in September 2010, for homeware products.

·         The first ever e-auction was conducted in July 2010.  So far, the company has concluded 10 e-auctions.

·         NTC has modernised 17 mills. 

Gadani ship-breaking industry .The golden past .

Gadani, an otherwise sleepy coastal stretch located at comfortable distance from Karachi, shot to international prominence in the early 1980s as the biggest ship-breaking yard anywhere in the world not so long ago. Today, it is facing an uncertain future partly because of substantial increase in the international prices of ship scrap and partly due to high import duty.

There are many who feel that excessive taxation is cutting the very supply of oxygen to the once thriving ship-breaking industry no differently than the proverbial killing of goose which laid the golden egg. While Gadani withers, the other countries of the region, like India and Bangladesh, have designs to replace Gadani with their own substitutes if their alacrity to lower import duty on ship scrap is any indication. The slowing down in the ship-breaking industry is costing the national economy much more than the lost taxes as hundreds of steel re-rolling and re-melting mills owe their very existence to the ship-breaking industry.

The drastic decline in the output has not happened overnight. It has declined gradually since late 1980s: From one million tonnes a year to 800,000 tonnes, to 600,000 tonnes and finally to the drastic low of today.

Hundreds of steel re-rolling and re-melting mills in Pakistan either owes their very existence or depends heavily on the ship-breaking industry for the supply of ship plates. The small re-rolling mills are worst hit by the non-availability of ship scrap as they entirely depends on ship plate compared to the bigger ones which can afford to use a comparatively more expensive iron billet of the Pakistan Steel. The small re-melting mills are facing a similar situation unlike the big counterparts which can afford to use iron ingot.

That explains the closure of tens of steel re-rolling mills in Karachi during last many years. Concern people  told that numerous small mills have been closed in Karachi over the years and some medium and big ones could have been closed if the demand had not been low, primarily due to slump in the construction industry.

The non-availability of raw material, ship plate, has forced the existing re-rolling mills to switchover to iron billet from the Pakistan Steel. This shift on the part of the re-rolling mills is resulted in increase demand for the Pakistan Steel's billet, the price of which has registered a substantial increase .

The idling of the ship-breaking industry have forced the steel re-rolling and re-melting mills, particularly the big ones, to replace comparatively less costly ship plate by a more expensive Pakistan Steel billet. While the slump in the construction industry has somewhat kept the price increases at bay at present, the question is what would happen when the construction activities pick up. The time to act is now to save the ship-breaking industry from a total collapse or else the situation would only become much worse in the years to come.

The excessive duty on the import of ships for scrap in addition to inconsistent policies have not only dealt a fatal blow to the ship-breaking activity but is also bound to increase the production costs which would take a heavy toll on the construction industry, as and when it comes out of the current slump. The situation would no more be under control then.

Today, India and Bangladesh has replace Pakistan as the ship-breaking giant which it once was. Tracking back the history of the Pakistani ship breaking industry one witnesses many ups and downs. The Industry was at its peak during the early 1980s and witnessed a slump in the late 1980s. It was revived in the early 1990s due primarily to the slump in prices of ships for demolition in the international market.Even some activities were few year back . 

Today the situation is worsened by the fact that less ships available for demolition in the international market thus fuelling an increase in the demand. The demand for ship scrap thus far surpasses the supply meaning that ship breakers have to pay a premium price to bring a ship at Gaddani. Slapping high duty on the import of ships for breaking purposes in such a scenario can hardly be termed as wise. As is, the ship breaking, a highly energy consuming industry by its very nature, today has to absorb the drastic increases in electricity and gas tariffs like everybody else. The high import duty is on ship scrap makes all the less sense as ship scrap is basically classified as a secondary raw material.

(Thank you to Mr S.M.Aslam to providing me valuable information)

Pakistani cement export is declining due to new duties from Afghanistan and other issues from India. .

Pakistan always help Afghanistan in  hard times but in return they put unnecessary duties on our products and on other hand First India refuse to honor Cotton deals now putting hurdles in cement exports. Lets read the detail story about these issues .

Pakistani cement exports to Afghanistan and India declined by $20 million in the first-half of the current fiscal after the Afghan government increased the transit fee and Indian authorities refused to renew export licences of some Pakistani manufacturers, sources in the ministry of industries said on Thursday.

The Afghan government increased the transit fee by 100 percent at Torkham border for each truck that carries cement from Pakistan, they said.

Indian businessmen played a cardinal role in pursuing the Afghan government to increase the transit fee and they succeeded in their designs, they added.

The Afghan government had earlier been charging Rs9,000 transit fee on a truck, which has now been doubled to Rs18,000. The decision was taken 14 days ago and the cement industry so far has lost $14 million worth deals.

The concerned ministries of commerce and foreign affairs remain unmoved over this development. However, the businessmen engaged in exporting cement to Afghanistan, including cement dealers, transporters and some representatives of the cement industry, are scheduled to hold talks with the Afghan authorities on Monday to resolve the issue of transit fee.

In 2008/09, Pakistan exported 3.18 million tonnes of cement worth $150 million to Afghanistan, which surged further to four million tonnes, valuing $200 million in 2009/10.

However, during the first six months of the current fiscal year, Pakistan’s cement exports stood at 2.265 million tons worth $110 million.

Similarly, Pakistan suffered a decline of $6 million in its exports to India because of the non-renewal of quality licences by the Bureau of India Standards (BIS), the sources said.

An official said that in 2008/09, Pakistan exported 0.634 million tonnes cement worth $35 million to India which increased in 2009/10 to 0.723 million tonnes worth $40 million. But during the first-half of the current fiscal year, the country exported only 0.215 million tonnes of cement worth $12 million.

The cement companies of Pakistan are required to obtain quality certification from the BIS. Between 2007 and 2008, BIS had granted quality licences to 22 Pakistani cement companies. Some of these licences, such as those obtained by DG Khan Cement and Maple Leaf, expired.

These companies, according to the All Pakistan Cement Manufacturers’ Association (APCMA), have approached BIS for renewal, but their applications remain pending for the last four to five months. The BIS did not reply to an emailed query.

“Pakistani cement has been well received in India. The BIS should renew licences as early as possible after completing the formalities,” said a spokesman for APCMA.

Since 2007, Pakistan has exported 2.32 million tonnes of cement to India and more licences would expire in the coming months, he added.

According to Anudeep Singh Madan, president of the Amritsar-based Cement Importers Association, the region is getting good quality cement from Pakistan at a lower price.

After taking into account the cost of rail transport from Wagah to Amritsar and further transportation within the country, the Pakistani cement is delivered to Indian buyers at Rs220 per 50kg bag, Rs30 less than the Indian cement.

Diminishing local demand also remains a concern for the Pakistani cement industry, which has been particularly hit hard by few projects in public sector development.

In 2008/09, Pakistan exported 6.06 million tonnes cement, earning $600 million. In 2009/10, it exported 5.6 million tonnes of cement, valuing $530 million. During the first six months, the industry exported 2.08 million tonnes worth $230 million.