CHENNAI: TVK president Vijay on Sunday urged the union and state governments to act on a ‘war footing’ and take emergency measures to safeguard the interests of exporters who face hardships due to the United States’ imposition of a 50% tariff on Indian goods. The TVK chief put forth an 11-point demand in this regard.
In a four-page statement, Vijay said that with Tamil Nadu contributing nearly 10% of India’s total exports, industries such as textiles, leather, footwear, automobiles, machinery and seafood are under threat. Traders in the US are avoiding Indian goods in favour of cheaper imports from countries like Bangladesh, leaving TN’s exporters struggling. Factories in Tiruppur, Vellore, Coimbatore and Thoothukudi risk closure, endangering lakhs of jobs.
The demands of Vijay include: formation of a union-state tariff response task force with representatives from industry and trade, creation of a special export stabilisation fund to support small and medium exporters facing cancellations of purchase orders, emergency relief measures by TN government including wage protection and subsidised credit for vulnerable workers, removing MSME from Basel-3 norms and introducing a simple banking policy for the same to ease the lending process, a two-year moratorium on principal repayments for MSMEs to mitigate the potential losses and a special financial package to help MSMEs diversity exports beyond the US.