Southern mills eye Mangalore Port for cotton import

Congestion in ports has pushed the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) to weigh the possibility of tapping New Mangalore Port (NPT) in Karnataka for cotton import.
Members of SIMA, along with those from the South India Spinners Association (SISPA), traders and liners, held talks in this regard with Chairman of New Mangalore Port Trust P C Parida and other officials earlier this week here.
The predominantly cotton-based textile industry in South, particularly the mills in Tamil Nadu, imports significant volumes of West African cotton to manufacture knitted garments.
According to SIMA, NPT offers excellent warehousing facilities, specially for the benefit of small and medium scale spinning mills.

SIMA has sought extension of Customs-free bonded warehouse for cotton -- as in Malaysian ports -- so that traders could store the imported cotton and supply to small and medium spinning mills all over Southern states, association President T Rajkumar said in a release today.
Such a facility would also enable the traders to return the unsold cotton to the original destination without any additional cost, he said.
On top of it, the port handling charges, wharfage and demurrages are much lower in the case of NPT and authorities have invited them to visit the port, he added.