The Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) has appealed to Union Minister Nirmala Seetharaman to give top priority to textile sector in the on-going study of India-EAEU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and also thanks her for swift finalization of first draft of the Joint Study Group (JSG) report on the feasibility of FTA.

In a letter to the Minister, ITF Secretary, Prabhu Dhamodaran said that there were tremendous opportunities awaiting the Indian textile products in this region.

Prabhu said that ITF was willing to submit data and also take active part in this JSG process.

Indian textile industry needed market diversification to untapped markets to overcome the challenges raised by the Trans Pacific Partnership, Prabhu said that ITF had already submitted the basic information regarding the scope for export of Indian textile products to Russia, the main country in EAEU.

In the financial year 2014, Russia imported textile and apparel items worth 13.5 billion US Dollars, of which apparel items accounted for USD 7.5 billion USD and India's share was just 248 Million USD of this huge Russian market.