COIMBATORE: Chief Minister M K Stalin on Thursday announced a 20% investment subsidy to textile companies to purchase advanced and modern weaving and knitting machinery.
In his address via video conference at the inaugural event of the International Textile Summit 360 organised by the department of textiles and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Coimbatore, Stalin said that an annual allocation of `30 crore will be made for the investment subsidy scheme for textile industry.
“Tamil Nadu is the second largest economy in India. The uniqueness of Tamil Nadu is that social justice is also maintained here and we have also achieved widespread development across all districts. As far as the textile sector is concerned, TN has earned the distinction of being India’s largest exporter in ready-made garment exports for five consecutive years,” he said.
Pointing out that TN accounts for 33% of India’s textile trade and directly employs 31 lakh workers including 60.12% of female workers, the CM said, “After returning to power, we created a separate department for the textile sector. We held two conferences in Chennai and Coimbatore to attract related investments. Recently, through the investor meet held in Coimbatore, Madurai and Thoothukudi, we have signed MoUs for investments worth `9,764 crore in the textile industry alone.”
“Tamil Nadu has been greatly affected by the 50% tariff imposed by the US. However, we are making many efforts to recover from it, such as identifying new markets, holding buyer-seller meetings and urging the centre to remove the 11% import duty on cotton,” he said.