Scrap POY anti-dumping duty - demand texturisers (India)

The texturising sector in India is a hassled lot. These texturising units which are mainly concentrated in the western regions of India in Silvassa and Surat, allege that the domestic manufacturers of Partially Oriented Yarn (POY) are increasing their prices, sometimes even on a daily basis. This is mainly due to the fact that the government had imposed an anti-dumping duty on imports of POY in 2002 and these domestic POY producers are taking advantage of the situation.

The All India Texturisers Association (AITA) has petitioned the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukerjee to remove the antidumping duty on POY imports as the situation has vastly changed from the time it was imposed around eight years back. This they aver will stop the POY producers from increasing the prices at will, without any real reason.

Speaking to fibre2fashion, Mr Satyanarayan Agarwal, President – AITA said, “We buy POY from spinners like Reliance, Indorama and others. We are facing a great difficulty in importing the raw material as there is anti-dumping duty on POY imports. However, today the situation has changed vastly from the time the duty was imposed in 2002. There is an urgent need to remove the anti-dumping duty as it is giving protection to the Indian POY manufacturers, who are dictating prices.

“The texturisers are facing great trouble because of this as we do not have any protection. We have to just surrender to the local manufacturers. Therefore, AITA would like to join hands with the government of India to help control inflation so that common man burdened with increase in prices of all essentials i.e., food, clothing and shelter can be relieved on atleast one front - clothing.

“POY is used for manufacturing polyester fabrics, which has since long since replaced cotton as the common man’s fabric. Cotton which used to be the common man’s fabric has become a luxury for those people. Polyester has come to the rescue and has been able to provide affordable clothing to the market. The government over the years has reduced customs and excise duty to 10%.

“However due to increased competition and dumping of POY from foreign countries anti dumping duties was imposed on POY. The antidumping duty is generally levied for not more than say around two years or so. However the anti-dumping duty on POY is going on since it was imposed in 2002 and Indian prices of POY are much higher than those in the international markets.

“The POY producers have also decreased supply which has resulted in texturisers loosing production and consequently resulting in very high yarn prices. So, we implore to the government to consider scrapping the anti-dumping duty which was imposed to protect the domestic industry, but now has started hurting the common man, due to the continuous hike in its prices”, he concluded by saying.