ReturnNEW DELHI: The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has reached out to the commerce ministry seeking a ban on import of silk and silk products from China, alleging that it is impacting the local silk industry in India.
The total production of silk across the globe in 2018 stood at 159,648 metric tonnes, of which India alone produced 35,261 metric tonnes, positioning it as the second largest producer of silk in the world after China.
“Despite being the world’s second largest producer of silk and the largest consumer of raw silk and silk fabrics, the import of low cost and low quality Chinese silk including artificial silk products negatively impacts the demand of Indian silk in its own markets,” KVIC chairman VK Saxena wrote in a recent letter to commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal.
This is another instance in recent times when KVIC has sought a ban on imports from China. Recently, the commission moved the commerce ministry to ban agarbattis or incense sticks, which were being imported on China, which, again, it alleged, was impacting the domestic industry.
Following KVIC’s plea, the commerce ministry moved agarbattis from ‘free’ to ‘restricted’ category of imports, which will lead to increase in import duty on the product category.
