The Andhra Pradesh Government is trying to push the entrepreneurs of textile sector in a big way to make best use of the benefits offered by the state and as well as the special textile package announced by the Union Government in the budget to set up more of textile units.

K. Srikanth Prabhakar, the Joint Director in the office of the Commissioner of Handlooms and Textiles, AP Government speaking at an interaction session with entrepreneurs here on Wednesday stated that during the recent CII partnership summit here 12 MoUs were signed by the State Government with different companies for setting up 12 apparel units in the State entailing investment of Rs. 963 crores in all.

These 12 projects will come up in the next one to one-and-a-half years. Four of the units will come up in the Brandix apparel park here, including two by Chinese companies, five units in Anantapur district and the remaining in Chittoor district and they will all be generating around 46,000 jobs.

State government officials, the Union Government and the AP Chambers of Commerce and Industries Federation were also participating at the interaction session with entrepreneurs.

Alok Dwivedi, the Deputy Director-General of Foreign Trade, spoke about the importance of promoting exports in the sector and B. Punnam Kumar, the Assistant Director-General of Foreign Trade, spoke about Export Promotion Credit Guarantee (EPCG) scheme which enables entrepreneurs to import capital goods (machinery) without paying duty. They have, however, an export obligation in the first six years.

Ramalinga Raju, the General Manager of the Visakhapatnam district industries centre, said that the clearances would be given speedily under the single window scheme and entrepreneurs should make best use of this opportunity.

T. Indira, of the Employee Provident Fund Corporation, spoke about the Pradhan Mantri Paridhan Rojgar Protsahan Yojana under which the Union Government shall bear the entire 12 percent contribution of the employer for new employees, if the employees are earning less than Rs15,000 per month for the first three years working in the garment and apparel industry.