PM MITRA to help India reclaim global leadership in textile sector: AEPC Chairman

New Delhi [India], October 6 : Following the Cabinet's approval for setting up seven Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (PM-MITRA) Parks across the country, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman Dr A Sakthivel on Wednesday said the move will help India regain its global leadership position in the textile industry.
"We are extremely thankful to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking a series of steps to promote the Indian textiles sector--PM MITRA Parks being the seventh in this series. It will attract massive foreign and domestic investment in the sector making it globally competitive while helping create lakhs of jobs," Sakthivel said in an official statement.
The AEPC chairman said he is confident that the textiles sector will increase its annual exports to over USD 100 billion in the next few years. "The sector, which is the second-largest employment generator in the country, alone will play a major role in realizing Aatmanirbhar Bharat," the statement added.
The Chairman also thanked Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and appreciated the important role played by the Minister of Commerce and Industry and Textiles Piyush Goyal in
"The recent steps namely Production Linked Incentive (PLI), Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP), Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (RoSCTL) scheme, along with the decision to clear all pending export incentive dues this year, removal of anti-dumping duty on key raw materials and fast-tracking of free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations will greatly boost the competitiveness of the domestic textiles industry and bring economies of scale," the chairman said.
According to the official statement issued by AEPC, India has been a dominant player in the cotton segment. Both government and industry are working to promote production and exports from these segments. "PM MITRA Parks will give this a major push," said AEPC.
"The country has all the players from farm to fashion but has still been lagging behind in the global apparel trade due to certain factors that have now been addressed. MITRA Parks, which will bring together all players of the textile value chain in one place, will help reduce logistics cost and also cut down on the delivery time," added Dr Sakthivel.
He further said that seven mega textile parks, which will be set up in the next three years, will create world-class infrastructure with plug and play facilities to enable and create global champions in exports.
To realise the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of building an Aatmanirbhar Bharat and to position India strongly on the Global textiles map, the Union Cabinet has approved the setting up of seven PM MITRA parks as announced in Union Budget for 2021-22.