9th March 2024, New Delhi: Confederation of Indian Textile Industry’s (CITI) Chairman, Shri Rakesh Mehra congratulated the Government for signing the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members.
“To provide a level playing field with our competitors, the Indian Textile Industry has constantly requested the signing of FTAs with major textile and apparel markets. The textile industry is pleased to observe that, under the leadership of Hon’ble Union Minister of Commerce & Industries, Shri Piyush Goyal, India has recently signed many trade agreements, including India-UAE CEPA and India-Australia ECTA. The upcoming India-EFTA agreement will help to accelerate the growth of the Indian textile industry, particularly in terms of vital inputs, technology, and product development opportunities,” Shri Mehra said.
He went on to say that while the EFTA members, which include Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, are an important trade bloc for the Indian textile industry, CITI had been requesting the government to expedite the signing of an FTA with Switzerland because both India and Switzerland complement each other’s needs in the T&A space, with India importing technology and machines from Switzerland and Switzerland offering itself as a buyer for raw materials and intermediate products.
He went on to say that in this regard, CITI and Swiss Textiles, one of Switzerland’s important National Associations of T&A, signed an MoU in November 2023 with the goal of promoting bilateral trade and investment as well as engaging in more product-specific B2B interactions, knowledge sharing, and capacity building, among other things, based on both countries’ core competencies.