Remedy to Export Consignment to EU

The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) seems to have found an interim remedy to export a consignment of 3.1 million sweatshirts to the European Union, that is stranded in transit, following an embargo put by the 15 member states.

The consignment is now proposed to enter EU as Category 7 (women''s blouse) and Category 8 (gents'' shirts) items, for which export quota has not been exhausted.

AEPC Chairman Virendra Uppal has also approached Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley seeking the government''s intervention at the level of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy to ensure that the additional quota of 7,000 tonnes provided to India was made available by crediting it to the system.

Commerce ministry sources, however, ruled out Jaitley''s direct intervention but said the matter would be taken up at the official level to ensure that Indian exporters did not suffer due to the technical discrepancy.

Earlier the EU put an embargo on the entry of the sweatshirt consignment, estimated to be worth around Rs 75 crore, which was the first shipment of the additional quotas made available to India.

Though discussions on the entry of the consignment had been initiated by the Indian High Commission in Brussels, not much headway had been made.

Uppal said even sweat shirts (Category 5 item) quota had not been fully used. As per fresh calculations by the AEPC, only 96 per cent of the available limit had been used.