New Delhi, Sunday, 10^th January 2021: National Committee on Textiles & Clothing (NCTC) appealed to the Hon’ble Prime Minister for removing Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) and address the VSF spun yarn availability and price issues to prevent job losses and stoppage of production across the VSF textile value chain.

The textile industry has been facing stagnation since many years mainly due to the lack of availability of the basic raw materials of man-made fibre / filament yarn at internationally competitive prices. Taking a serious view of the high price of VSF in India, the captains of the various segments of VSF value chain, viz  Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), The Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI), Indian Spinners Association (ISA) and Powerloom Development Export Promotion Council (PDEXCIL) under the common platform of NCTC have unanimously submitted a joint representation to the Hon’ble Prime Minister of India for the removal of Anti-Dumping Duty on Import of VSF to achieve global competitiveness and accomplish the target of US$ 350 billion by 2025 set by the Ministry of Textiles for the textiles and apparel sector. They have also requested the Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles and Secretary, Textiles to support the textile industry in this regard.

NCTC observed that “owing to the growing demand for Viscose Staple Fibre and its blended textiles and clothing market opportunities, the demand for Viscose Staple Fibre has increased steeply not only in India, but also across the globe.  As the imported yarn prices was cheaper due to the high anti-dumping protection given for the domestic Viscose Staple Fibre, the weaving and knitting sectors have been importing large volume of VSF spun yarn.  The import of VSF spun yarn has increased from 2 million kgs during 2016-17 to 56 million kgs during 2019-20”.

NCTC also highlighted in the appeal that “in the post-Covid market scenario, VSF price has increased from US $ 1.15 to US$ 1.50 per kg during the last few months.  As the domestic VSF spun yarn price was expensive compared to imported VSF spun yarn due to anti-dumping duty (upto US$ 0.512 per kg), the demand for domestic spun yarn got reduced and therefore, the availability and price are affecting the entire VSF value chain especially the knitted and powerloom sectors.  All the major VSF Powerloom clusters in the states like Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, etc are agitating against the steep increase in VSF prices”.

In view of the above, NCTC has appealed to the Hon’ble Prime Minister to remove the anti-dumping duty levied on Viscose Staple Fibre on a war footing to address the burning issue, grab the emerging market opportunities and to protect the livelihoods of several lakhs of workers employed in the VSF textile value chain. This is the second appeal to the Hon’ble Prime Minister, in this regard.

At the same time, NCTC highly appreciates that the Hon’ble Union Minister of Textiles has recommended to the Government for supporting the textile industry in removing Anti-Dumping Duty (ADD) on the import of Viscose Staple Fibre (VSF) as it ensures availability of raw materials at economical prices to the spinning industry.  The VSF value chain stakeholders also welcomes the fact that the Hon’ble Union Minister and the Ministry of Textiles supports the policy of having availability of raw materials at economical and cheaper prices so that value added products are manufactured and employment is generated at large scale.

The VSF Value Chain Industry players concluded by saying that removing ADD on VSF will make the domestic VSF prices aligned with the Global VSF prices making the entire Indian VSF textile value chain globally competitive and boost production and exports of these products.