Anil Rajvanshi, Chairman of Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council had a meet with the Union Textiles Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar over the rising ingress of foreign yarn. In a letter later submitted to the Ministry, Rajvanshi said that the Indian “manmade fibre industry is passing through a tough phase as the substantially high excise duty provides edge to Chinese producers to dump polyester fibres in India.”

According to him the domestically produced synthetic yarn is losing market share to cheaper imported yarn from China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Imports of fibres, filament yarn and spun yarns of polyester increased over 18 per cent in 2014-15 compared to the previous year, to $825 million from $698 million in 2013-14. These imports, predominantly from China, amounted to over ₹5,000 crore.

Thus the industry body for synthetic textiles has requested the Textiles Ministry for a break from excise duty on domestically-produced synthetic yarn and to make a case for scrapping the excise duty.

The Synthetic & Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC), one of the oldest Export Promotion Councils in India, has played a transforming role over the years, inculcating export culture and promoting exports of Indian man-made fibre and textiles.

According to the council the excise duty is unfair discrimination between cotton and synthetic fibre and is distorting the textile market in favour of cotton, which is the opposite of the global trend.