Faced with a huge rise in cotton prices, the South India Small Spinners Association has urged the Centre to ban export of raw cotton.
Sisspa president R Kuppusamy said in a statement that cotton export decisions were being made without assessing the availability of cotton stocks in the country. Moreover, the differences in projected cotton crop and actual arrivals in the market are not being considered before cotton export is cleared. Middlemen were creating an 'artificial' scarcity to push up prices, the
statement said.
The association said the textile industry faced problems such as mounting yarn stocks, falling yarn prices and sliding exports due to rupee-dollar volatility. The sharp increase in raw cotton prices by Rs 1,000-Rs 1,500 per candy in the past month would only add to the sector's troubles.
Besides banning cotton exports, Sisspa wants the Centre to allow duty-free import of raw cotton and expeditious clearance of the five per cent capital subsidy under TUFS for textile spinners
