India: Clothing exporters receive interest subsidy bounty
Write:
Eiddwen [2011-05-20]
The government had earlier announced a two percent interest subsidy for labour intensive sectors like textiles, handicrafts and marine, but had not included the garment manufacturing sector.
But with a noticeable increase in exports from the apparel sector, the government has now corrected the anomaly by giving the same incentives to the clothing exporters of the country.
According to a statement sent to banks by the Reserve Bank of India, the benefit would be effective retrospectively from December 1, 2008, and would remain in force till March 31, 2010.
Garments exports had witnessed a decline by an average of 9.5 per cent in the first four months of 2009-10, due to a demand fall from the key traditional markets of the European Union and US.
Out of the overall apparel export trade of US $10 billion these two regions account for 70 percent of all shipments from the industry. In the last 2-3 months, garment exports from the country have begun to show positive growth.