CLE for increase in duty free limit for leather garments to 5 pc

Hailing the measures announced by the government to bolster exports, Council for Leather Exports (CLE) on Monday demanded an increase in the duty-free limit for leather garments to 5 percent to help boost shipments of the sector. CLE Chairman Panaruna Aqeel said India is the second-largest global exporter of leather garments and enhancing the duty-free limit will help achieve the top position.

"We are requesting for enhancement of duty-free limit for leather garment exporters from 3 percent to 5 percent of FOB (freight on board) value of exports as this will help revive exports from this segment which has been showing a decline of about 13 percent this year," Aqeel said. Aqeel also said easy and timely availability of credit with affordable interest levels is extremely important for the leather and footwear sector as this alone can help in tapping the huge opportunities available in global markets.

"In this context, the finance minister has announced major steps including measures to improve trade credit flows and transmission of interest rate cuts by banks, monitoring export finance through an inter-ministerial group in Department Of Commerce," he said in a statement. He added that Priority Sector Lending norms for export finance would galvanize the sector particularly the MSMEs which are affected by the slowdown.

"Being a consumer-oriented sector and being predominantly concentrated in the MSME segment, leather, and footwear sector has been facing challenges on the export front due to factors like recessionary trends and fierce price competition," the chairman said. Currently, the export of leather and its products stands at about USD 6 billion. Major export destinations include Europe and the US. The sector employs about 42 lakh people.

Leather and leather products exports dipped by about 4 percent to USD 473 million in July.