New Turkish duty will affect India's textile exports

Vide a notification issued on April 20, 2020, Turkey has imposed additional duties on a wide range of products, which includes 'Textiles & Clothing' products. Additional duties of 8 to 12 per cent on cotton yarn, 25 per cent on made-ups, and 35 per cent on apparel has been imposed.

“The additional duties imposed by Turkey will adversely affect exports of cotton yarn and fabrics to Turkey,” said TEXPROCIL chairman KV Srinivasan. He pointed out that there was already an additional duty of 20 per cent imposed on fabrics in 2011 and this has now been increased to 25 per cent.

Indian textile and apparel exporters are already facing unprecedented challenges on account of COVID-19 and are reeling under the combined impact of closure of production facilities due to lockdown on the one hand and cancellation of export orders on a large scale and non-receipt of payments against shipments already made on the other hand.

With huge disruptions caused in the main export markets of the US and EU due to COVID-19, the additional duties imposed by Turkey has further aggravated the problems for textiles exporters, according to Srinivasan.

“In these crisis times, countries should not create additional tariff barriers for commonly traded commercial products but enable normal development of trading activities,” said Srinivasan in a press release.

He urged the Indian government to take up this matter immediately with the Turkish government so that textile products exported from India to Turkey are exempted from the additional duties.

He also appealed to the government to include cotton yarn under the MEIS since Turkey is an important market for this product.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)