The textile industry has welcomed the relaxation of the mandatory Quality Control Order (QCO) for polyester fibre, filament yarn and spun yarn imported under advance authorisation scheme, export oriented units, and special economic zone industries.
In a press release issued on Friday, Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) chairman S.K. Sundararaman said the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers (Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals) issued QCO for polyester staple fibres, various filament yarns and spun yarn in a notification dated April 15, 2021 mandating every user to purchase these products only from BIS licence holders in the domestic and international markets.
Though the domestic manufacturers obtained the licence, applications submitted by foreign manufacturers were pending before the BIS authorities for inspection and approval. This had hit the textile exporters of products made of speciality fibres / filament yarns and spun yarns, as their buyers specified the said raw materials.
Mr. Sundararaman welcomed the move by the government to relax the QCO norms for import of viscose fibre under advance authorisation scheme (through an order issued on March 11, 2024) and extending the relaxation for polyester staple fibre, filament and spun yarn through a notification dated June 6, 2024.
For the manmade fibre (MMF) imports permitted under the Advance Authorisation Scheme, the users should adhere to pre-import conditions (using the imported fibres only for export purpose) and the period for fulfilment of export obligation is now reduced to six months from 18 months. The relaxation is a relief to the MMF textile products exporters enabling them to improve their export performance that was significantly affected in the last two years. Mr. Sundararaman also appealed to the new government to bring the entire MMF textile value chain under 5% GST rate on a par with cotton.
Rakesh Mehra, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, and Bhadresh Dodhia, chairman of the Manmade and Technical Textiles Export Promotion Council, also welcomed the QCO relaxations. They said the 180 day time to meet export obligations under advance authorisation scheme would not affect the industry as any textile value chain did not take more than 180 days to complete production and export the products. Further, companies would not want to have inventory of the raw materials for more than six months, they said.
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