Apparel Exporters Up in Arms Against Cotton Exports.

Come October India will resume export of cotton. While this will bring cheer to millions of cotton farmers, the textile industry is up in arms as their raw material cotton would get expensive. Apparel exporters say this could lead to a shortage of yarn to the domestic industry.

Already the price of this raw material has risen by more than 40 per cent and any further escalation could make Indian apparel uncompetitive in the international market.

"A lot of buyers had shifted to us from China, now they are planning to switch to China again. We will be losing lots of orders," said V Kumar, CEO of Standard Textiles.

"If this continues for one year, this will lead lots of closures and unemployment," said N Rajasekaram, MD of Kanara Krafts.

Thanks to the high yielding BT cotton, India is now the second largest cotton exporter. The government projects pan-India production of 32 million cotton bales overall this year.

Cotton exports are likely to benefit 6 million farmers as they would get a higher price in the international market.
 
"Now we have lot of money in our hands, we are happy and are able to fulfill our aspirations," said Jayavel, a cotton farmer.

With 35 million workers the apparel industry constitutes a strong vote bank and already allies DMK president M Karunanidhilike are mounting pressure to shelf cotton export plans.

M Karunanidhi has called upon Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reconsider the Centre's decision to allow export of cotton starting from October.

Clearly it's a tight rope walk for the centre in the battle between farmers versus traders.

Source : profit.ndtv.com