In a memorandum to the Union Minister for State for Commerce and Industry, Nirmala Sitharaman , the Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA) has urged to expedite the signing of export related agreements with the countries of European Union, Canada and Australia to achieve the target of increasing the garment export by double the quantity within the next three years.

TEA President A. Sakthivel submitted the memorandum to the minister who visited Coimbatore on Saturday. It added: “The garment sector has totally exported Ready Made Garments (RMG) worth US $ 16.82 billion in 2014 – 15 and out of this US $ 7.23 billion value of garment was exported to the European Union. It is still having the potential to enhance exports in EU, if a level playing field is provided to the sector.”

“Our main competing country Bangladesh, as a least developed country, is now enjoying the duty free market in EU and has exported about US $ 15 billion in 2014 -15 to EU market alone, more than double of India. We could dent the market share of Bangladesh, if Free Trade Agreement (FTA) is implemented.”

According to Mr. Sakthivel, Indian garment sector was doing a significant volume of export to Canada, which was a promising market earlier. But over a period of years, the exports had come down drastically.

“We are now doubtful about our survival in the huge Canada market after losing our competitive edge. We are however confident that after the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) comes into play, we could be able to compete with these countries effectively and increase our market share.” he added.

He also urged that the signing the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) with Australia be signed, as there was good scope for enhancing the Indian market share. He demanded that various pending schemes of the export sector be implemented for increasing the growth of this sector.