New categories for apparel consignment blocked by EU

 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.

 On Thursday, 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.

 "We have some margin there but we decided to use the flexibility available in other categories to ensure that exporters did not suffer," the AEPC chairman said.

 Uppal said the government intervention had been sought so that a long-term solution could be worked out at the earliest and exporters, who were under pressure due to appreciation of rupee to the dollar did not suffer.

 "This (the EU embargo) is only a temporary problem and a solution will be worked out soon," Uppal added.