The Government, as part of its continuous measures to safeguard the interests of the industry and to boost textile exports has imposed ad valorem and specific duty on import of a number of textile and clothing items, said Minister of State for Textile (Tamil Nadu), Mr EVKS Elangovan.

He said that the Indian textile exports during FY06 stood at US$17079.57 million as against US$14026.72 million in FY05; whereas textile imports during FY06 stood at US$2699.23 million as against US$2266.15 million in FY05. However, India’s textile imports are not significant and are less than 16 percent of textile exports in the atmosphere of liberalisation although it is governed by market forces subject to export-import policy. He clarified the initiatives taken by government to safeguard the interests of domestic industry from cheap imports.