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‘Kavitha Rani H.M., executive committee member, Garment and Textile Workers’ Union, who works in a factory in Mandya
Women in garment factories work at a furious pace in an attempt to meet the unrealistically high targets set by supervisors. They often complain about back ache and develop allergies after working for a few months.
To make the work environment favourable to women, factories should first reduce work pressure by setting realistic daily targets and allowing women to rest a bit during work hours.
As attrition is high, factories should try to incentivise those who put in more than five years in one place. Job security is an important factor that women want.
It would also be a good move for garment factories to have on-site facilities such as canteens and nurseries for children. This will offer much relief to the workers as many travel long distances to their workplace.
Currently, insurance is applicable only in hospitals in Mysuru and Bengaluru. The ESI facility should be extended to at least two hospitals in every taluk and district headquarters.
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The Confederation of Indian Industry, CII on Thursday said the recent reforms ushered in by the government are creating new livelihoods across existing and emerging sectors, with eight segments of the economy alone expected to create over 10 crore jobs by 2025.
The eight sectors that CII highlighted include retail, construction, transport and logistics, tourism and hospitality, handlooms and handicrafts, textiles and apparels, food processing, and automotive.
CII President Rakesh Bharti Mittal told PTI that the measures to promote ease of doing business, cut in tax rates for smaller enterprises to 25 per cent, and reduction in interest rates are creating the right atmosphere for new businesses to flourish, particularly SMEs. He said this is an effective stimulant for job creation.
Mr Mittal observed that as per the latest data relating to Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), around 7.2 million new subscribers were added to social security schemes between September 2017 and December 2018.
He said the social security scheme numbers of EPFO reflect the rising off take of new jobs in the formal sector and this is in line with the estimates for the increase in employment in CII’s feedback from large companies.
Italian officials said Mr. Xi was due to visit Italy from March 22-24, and would spend at least one day in Palermo.
Italy is negotiating a preliminary deal to become a part of China’s giant “Belt and Road” infrastructure plan to boost trade, a government official said on Wednesday, in a move that could upset the United States.
Junior Industry Minister Michele Geraci said that if Italy did sign an accord when Chinese President Xi Jinping visits the country later this month, it would be non-binding and just “an initial framework”.
However, in a sign there is no government unity on the issue, another junior minister cautioned against any such move, saying more thought had to be given about national security.
“At this moment, I do not think we should proceed with the signature,” Foreign Ministry undersecretary Guglielmo Picchi wrote on Twitter.
Both Mr. Picchi and Mr. Geraci represent the coalition, far-right League party.
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), championed by Mr. Xi, aims to link China by sea and land with southeast and central Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa, through an infrastructure network on the lines of the old Silk Road.
Aside from boosting trade and investment, Mr. Xi aims to advance exchanges in areas such as science, technology and culture.
Italian officials said Mr. Xi was due to visit Italy from March 22-24, and would spend at least one day in Palermo — the capital of the island of Sicily.
“We are still negotiating the details of the MoU (memorandum of understanding) and it might, or might not be signed,” Mr. Geraci said. “It is an initial framework. It is not a contract, there are no commitments, there are no funds and no obligations.”
Italy fell into recession at the end of 2018 for the third time in a decade and the government is eager to find ways to boost the economy and revive the stalled construction sector.
Pressure
The Financial Times reported on Wednesday that the United States was irritated by the prospect of Italy joining the BRI, and had warned the project could significantly damage Rome’s international image.
“We view BRI as a ‘made by China, for China’ initiative,” the newspaper quoted Garrett Marquis, White House National Security Council spokesperson, as saying.
Mr. Geraci said he had not seen any sign the United States was annoyed or concerned.
“Our goal does not seem to me to be controversial,” he said. ”It is about helping companies do business.”
An Italian diplomatic source told Reuters that Rome was facing “a lot of pressure” from China to sign a MOU, but added that if an accord was reached it would be “an empty box”.
Mr. Picchi, who is close to League leader Matteo Salvini, said allowing China to help build Italy’s 5G high-speed telecom network and giving it access to other infrastructure was a security issue that needed further review.
A number of European Union states have signed MoUs with China, including Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Greece, Malta, Poland and Portugal. If Italy signs, it would be the first Group of Seven major industrialised nation to do so.
An EU spokesperson in Brussels said the EU was cooperating with Beijing on the initiative, but added that this was “on the basis of China fulfilling its declared aim of making it an open platform which adheres to market rules, EU and international requirements and standards”.
Past EU optimism over dealing with China has turned to frustration over Beijing’s slowness to open up its economy and a surge of Chinese takeovers in critical sectors. There has also been pressure from the United States to shun China over espionage fears.
Strengthening and developing bilateral relations of friendship and cooperation with China is one of the priorities of Tajikistan’s foreign policy. Meanwhile, China is also very interested in the Central Asian region as a whole.
China State Machinery Industry Construction Group Inc will help to raise $ 300 million for the development of the textile industry in Tajikistan.
A delegation of Chinese businessmen under the leadership of the trade manager of China Machinery Industry Construction Group Inc Hu Sina met with Nematullo Hikmatullozoda, Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Tajikistan on March 5.
At the meeting, it was noted that the Chinese state corporation will assist the “Shino Tajikistan Kulyab Textile Industry Park” enterprise in attracting foreign direct investment for processing cotton fiber.
This enterprise is located on the territory of the newly formed Kulyab free economic zone, the press service of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade reports.
It is expected that investment in this enterprise will be carried out in two stages. At the first stage, financing will be $ 130 million, and at the second – $ 170 million.
It is planned to create 5,500 jobs at the enterprise, the annual processing of cotton will be 35,000 tons.
The resolution on the establishment of the Kulyab FEZ was adopted by the Tajik Government at the end of February 2019.
Since 2008, four FEZs – “Sogd”, “Dangara”, “Pyanj” and “Ishkashim” have been operating in the republic.
Founded in September 1953, China Machinery Industry Construction Group Inc is the largest construction state corporation in China.
Until the middle of the 2000s, cotton was considered one of the two main export goods of Tajikistan (along with aluminum). In the 1980s, about 800,000 tons of cotton were harvested annually in Soviet Tajikistan.
At the same time, most of the cotton fiber produced in the country is exported as raw materials. The processing of these products within the country is insignificant.
Diplomatic relations between Tajikistan and China were established on January 4, 1992.
It was previously announced that it is planned to increase the foreign trade turnover of Tajikistan and China to $3 billion by 2020.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Commerce and Textile has announced an increase in fees for all intellectual property (IP) matters.
In a notification on Monday, March 4, the government said fees will jump by 50% from March 9 for all trademark and patent related matters. Revised copyright fees will be put into practice on March 14.
Talib Ali Shah, an associate at Ali & Associates in Karachi, said the sudden hike in fees has come as a shock to many stakeholders
Shah said the effective date of the new fees gives “firms and trademark attorneys almost no lead time to prepare and inform clients”, including those that are overseas.
Salim Hasan, an executive partner at Meer & Hasan in Lahore, Pakistan, said the increase will certainly impact small businesses and individuals, but “is not likely to impact medium to big enterprises”.
Shah added there was already a lack of awareness about the important of intellectual property registration among small enterprises, and these sudden revisions “will only enhance that gap”.
“In the prevailing economic situation of the country, the multifold increase” will only “penalise creators, inventors and brand owners from securing their rights,” he said.
He described the increase as “counterproductive”, and said it created a “long-term disincentive for IP protection, for a short-term increase in revenues”.
Ashin Chungath, IP consultant manager at Jah & CO IP in Qatar, said the revision of the fee structure will provide Pakistan’s IPO with the necessary finances “to make it a robust organisation” that meets international standards.
“Additional funds are required to upgrade the IP infrastructure and support proposed initiatives which cannot be met under the existing fee structure,” Chungath said.
According to Chungath, Pakistan’s existing lower fee structure allows for the filing of many undesirable applications for trademark registrations, “with the ulterior motives of killing competition, instead of safeguarding intellectual property rights”.
The increase in fees will help to discourage these applications, he said.
Currently, a trademark application costs 2,000 ($14) Pakistani rupees (PKR). As of March 9, this will increase to 3,000PKR.
The increase in patent application fees means inventors will pay 7,065PKR instead of 4,710PKR.
Pakistan last revised its fee structure in 2011, when its IP legislation was amended in line with the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).
But, according to Shah, this increase has not yet led to improvement in the system or facilities at the ground level of the registries.
The Zhejiang province in China plans to raise its trade volume with Africa to $40 billion by the end of 2022 to account for at least 20 per cent of the total Sino-Africa trade. The plan promises to increase investments in Africa’s textiles, garments, chemicals, equipment manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries to meet the continent’s development needs. The province’s commerce department issued an action plan on the details recently as China’s first provincial-level plan on economic cooperation with African nations. Zhejiang hosts many of the country’s most successful private businesses.
The 40-billion-dollar target will mark a significant rise from the 30.1-billion-dollar trade between Africa and the province in 2018, according to a news agency report. The province, however, will bar investments that are polluting and highly energy-consuming from going to Africa, said the plan, which also calls for more agricultural investments and cooperation. The province would expand goods imports from Africa, especially in the non-resources category, according to document. China’s foreign trade with Africa reached $204.19 billion in 2018, up 19.7 per cent year-on-year and 7.1 percentage points higher than the growth of China’s overall foreign trade during the same period, according to China Customs. Specifically, the country’s exports to Africa rose 10.8 per cent to $104.91 billion in 2018, while its imports from Africa surged 30.8 per cent to reach $99.28 billion.
Not enough textile waste is recycled across Europe. Since 2015, the Horizon 2020 project Resyntex has been looking to tackle this issue by showcasing innovative circular economy concepts for the textiles and chemical industries.
The conference entitled Final Conference: From Textile Waste to Secondary Raw Materials will take place on 24 April in Brussels. The Resyntex project partners invite visitors to join them and other industry experts to exchange knowledge on alternative solutions for post-consumer unwearable textiles, such as innovative reprocessing technologies for pure or blended fibres and secondary materials which can replace virgin feedstock.
Confirmed speakers include:
• Vittoria Troppenz, Head of Circularity & Business Development, SOEX
• Aleksandra Lobnik, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and the Head of the Centre of Sensor Technology, University of Maribor
• Nicholas Hall, Senior Lecturer – Fashion Business, Manchester Metropolitan University
• Athanassios Nikolakopoulos, Department of Process Analysis and Plant Design, National Technical University of Athens
• Valérie Boiten, Consultant and Researcher in Stakeholder Engagement, Prospex Institute
Policymakers will also join a panel discussion with circular economy and technology experts from the clothing, waste management and chemical industries to discuss how technological and business model solutions can help bring (bio)chemical recycling to market adoption. “Europe needs to move towards a more circular economy to conserve its future environment and society. Currently, many of the materials contained in products are discarded as waste after use. The textiles industry is no exception. Much of its waste is landfilled or incinerated with a high environmental impact and at great cost. Valuable resources held within the waste are lost,” the project partners explain. Resyntex aims to change this through research and innovation.”
Can the RBI’s reduction in borrowing costshelp check the demand slowdown?
India’s economy is inarguably slowing, and the latest estimates from the Central Statistics Office disconcertingly point to a deepening slowdown. GDP growth is projected to have eased to 6.6% in the October-December period. With the CSO now forecasting the full-year expansion at 7%, fiscal fourth-quarter growth is implicitly pegged at an even slower 6.5%. At that level, growth would have slowed to a seven-quarter low, giving the incumbent NDA government its slowest pace of annual growth. The data clearly reflect the pain points in the real economy that have been evident for some time now. For one, the farm sector continues to remain in trouble with GVA (gross value added) growth in agriculture, forestry and fishing having slowed sharply to 2.7% in the last quarter, from a 4.2% pace in July-September and 4.6% a year earlier. With rabi sowing showing a shortfall across most crops after a deficient north-east monsoon, and the abiding structural issues that have pushed a multitude of farmers into acute distress nowhere near resolution, it is hard to foresee an early revival in this crucial primary sector. This, in turn, continues to dog demand in the hinterland for manufactured products, from two-wheelers to tractors, and is evident in the consumption spending data. Growth in private final consumption expenditure eased appreciably to 8.4%, from the second quarter’s pace of 9.8%.
Manufacturing is another source of concern. The estimates for growth in GVA for the sector put the pace at 6.7%, weaker than the 6.9% posted in the second quarter and a rapid deceleration from the April-June period’s 12.4%. The latest Index of Industrial Production (IIP) figures also give little cause for optimism as manufacturing expansion in December slowed to 2.7%, from 8.7% 12 months earlier. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had in fact pointedly cited how “high-frequency and survey-based indicators for the manufacturing and services sectors” suggested a slowdown in the pace of activity, to help justify his vote last month for an interest rate cut to bolster growth. That most of the sectors comprising the broader services basket remain becalmed adds to the sense of disquiet. It remains to be seen if the RBI’s reduction in borrowing costs helps check the demand slowdown in the fourth quarter, an improvement in investment activity notwithstanding. Gross fixed capital formation, the key metric for investment demand, expanded by a healthy 10.6%, building on the second quarter’s 10.2% increase. Still, with military tensions with Pakistan on the boil, a long campaign for the general election ahead, uncertainties looming on the global trade and growth horizons, and little fiscal leeway to tease back momentum through increased spending, the economy appears headed for a period of uncertainty at least till the next government is in place.
The financial implication of rate reduction is about Rs. 90,000 crore a year, says the Revenue Secretary
The hit suffered by the exchequer following the income tax rebate announced for individuals with incomes of up to Rs. 5 lakh will be more than offset by the overall growth in direct tax collections, Revenue Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey says. On the indirect tax side, he says that the government expects to at least achieve its revised estimate for GST revenue, which is lower than what has been initially budgeted for the year. Excerpts from the interview.
Can you estimate by how much Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue for the year will fall short of what is needed?
We have done a realistic assessment of how much revenue we are going to get in this year and accordingly we have revised our budgetary estimates for the current year.
In the case of the GST, we have brought down our revised estimates to a lower value as compared to what we had given in our budgetary estimate.
The reason is that during the 1.5 years of GST, we had done lots of adjustments in terms of process as well as rates. The rates have been brought down on many items.
The financial implication of the rate reduction is about Rs. 90,000 crore a year. Based on all these, accordingly for the current year, we have brought down our revenue estimates. And that much we hope to achieve.
Have you been able to estimate the impact on revenues following the I-T rebate given to those earning up to Rs. 5 lakh a year?
We have given a full income tax rebate to those whose total taxable income is less than Rs. 5 lakh a year.
This is basically to provide relief to the people who are in the middle class and particularly those who are earning even in that class. The total benefit that we are going to provide to this class is about Rs. 18,500 crore in a year, so that is the likely impact on our revenues.
Can the government afford this the when GST revenue has already been revised downwards?
If you see our direct tax revenue, there we have increased the revised estimate by Rs. 50,000 crore. And this, despite the reduction in tax rates.
Companies are asking for corporate tax rates to be reduced to 25%…
We have a policy, which we had announced in 2015, that the rates of the income tax for the corporates would be brought down to 25% and it has been, over the years, brought down to that level. About 99% of the companies are being taxed at a rate of 25%. Only 1% of the companies are in the range of 30%. Now, we will have to watch for the revenue trend and then the appropriate decision will be taken in due course. As far as the remaining tax proposals are concerned, they will be considered by the government when the full Budget is presented in July.
Is the GST 2.0 system of invoice matching still on track to begin from April 1, 2019?
The GST Council has already taken a decision that the new return system will come from July 1. The new return system will be a very simplified system. Earlier, we had a system of GSTR 1, GSTR 2, and GSTR 3. Now, in place of that, there will be only one return.
The system will be such that it will require minimum information from the taxpayers so that the compliance burden will be less. At the same time, it will also incentivise self-compliance because the entire design of the GST system is such that it promotes self-compliance rather than someone going and doing inspections and forcing compliance.
What additional information will this new return filing system give?
If you see the design of the new return system, first of all what we have done is that the monthly returns will be applicable to only those who are having a turnover of more than Rs. 5 crore. The smaller taxpayers will be given relief. People with a turnover of between Rs. 1.5-5 crore will file only on a quarterly basis. These are some of the advantages we have given. Only the minimal information, which is required for the system to determine the compliance, has been taken and this was done in consultation with the States and stakeholders.
The new GST return system will require minimum information from taxpayers
Work on the Mysuru Mega Silk Cluster is expected to start soon with bhoomi puja being performed at the site of the project at Belawadi on the outskirts of Mysuru here on Sunday.
A joint venture of the Union and the State governments, the silk cluster is an initiative under the revised National Handloom Development Programme (NHDP) at a cost of Rs. 59 crore. The project was proposed five years ago.
Minister for Sericulture and Tourism S.R. Mahesh and Pratap Simha, MP, gave a start to the Chamundeshwari Mega Silk Cluster.
The cluster proposes to establish state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities for silk weaving and processing for supporting the silk industry in the region.
Besides creating livelihood opportunities for the rural and the semi-urban populace, the cluster is expected to promote sericulture.
The silk cluster is expected to open up job opportunities for the skilled manpower here with many entrepreneurs setting up their units.
Mysuru houses a silk weaving factory which is over a century old and thearea around Mysuru is dominated by sericulture and Mysuru Silk, produced by the KSIC, is well known across the globe.
