Ashwin Chandran, President, Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA), has urged the Centre to remove anti-dumping duty (ADD) on viscose fiber and make the Man Made Fiber (MMF) segment eligible for the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. Currently India has a negligible share in 50 items, identified to be eligible for the scheme, in the global market. On the other hand, Bangladesh and Vietnam have 7 per cent and 6.4 per cent shares respectively. Indian textile industry requires almost 6.34 lakh tonne of viscose fiber in FY20 and the fiber available for consumption from local capacities is 4.78 lakh tonne, he said.
M Senthil Kumar, Former Chairman, SIMA says, since viscose fiber attracts anti-dumping duty textile industry imports of viscose yarn are on the rise. Hence, if ADD on fiber is removed for viscose and linen, more spindles will be engaged in production of these yarns and domestic local power loom industry would get the yarn at a lower price, he adds. He therefore, urged the government to remove the ADD at fiber level and treat all fibers equally.