The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Need for curbs on cotton export

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Thursday, Nov 12, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Need for curbs on cotton export

Staff Reporter

— Photo: K. Ganesan

MAKING A POINT: Karumuttu T. Kannan, second from left, Chairman of Textiles Committee, sharing a word with N. Mathivanan, Collector, at a workshop in the city on Tuesday. (from left) Pradeep Gupta, Secretary, Textiles Committee, and M. Britto Joseph, Chairman, HEPC, are also seen.

MADURAI: Karumuttu T. Kannan, Chairman of the Textiles Committee, which comes under the Union Ministry of Textiles, has called for checking the export of cotton in unrestricted quantities. He said that a system of cotton export in staggered quantities must be brought into force as unchecked export was hurting the small and medium mills in the country.

Addressing an awareness workshop on ‘Rating of ginning and pressing factories’ here on Tuesday, he said that the last two years had seen the entry of multinational companies who, with their unrestricted access to credit in the international markets, had been hoarding cotton.

“This is resulting in India losing out to China and Bangladesh, which are our competitors for finished goods. While exports are necessary for those in the sector to get good prices, it should be staggered as small units have access only to limited capital,” he said.

India and Pakistan were the only countries in the world to handpick cotton instead of using harvesting machines the reason why cotton from these places commanded global respect.

The production levels had also increased manifold over the last few years.

However, Indian cotton had high contamination levels owing to negligence in harvesting process.

If this were to be controlled, it could save crores of rupees spent on decontaminating the harvested cotton using German and Swiss technologies, said Mr. Kannan.

One-third of earnings

Collector N. Mathivanan pointed out that textile exports contributed to one-third of the country’s export earnings and 20 per cent of total Indian exports.

Productivity had increased from 27.9 lakh cotton bales of 170-kg bales in 1947-48 to 314 lakh bales in 2007-08, accounting for 21.1 per cent of world production, he said

Speaking earlier, M. Britto Joseph, Chairman of Handloom Export Promotion Council (HEPC) and member of the Textiles Committee, said that the Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran was focussing on promoting modernisation and foreign collaboration in the textile sector.

N.A.K. Gopalkrishna Raja, president of Madurai Spinners Association Trust, said that while the textile sector witnessed many changes, ginning was one field that remained unchanged.

Pradeep Gupta, secretary of the committee, and S. Ulaganathan, Director (export promotion and quality assurance) of the committee, spoke.

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