"Dereservation of the garments sector is holding the policy back. The textile policy is with the cabinet, which has sent it to the group of ministers to decide on this and we will announce it shortly," Rana told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar on textile exports organised by federation of Indian chambers of commerce and industry (Ficci).
Later, giving a timeframe, textiles secretary, Anil Kumar, said, the ministry expected to reach a decision on dereservation of garments by the end of September. "We should be reaching a decision by 30th of September," he said.
India would also be taking up the issue of tariff and non-tariff barriers in textile exports to US, when prime minister Atal Behari Vajpayee vists US during next month, Rana said.
Explaining this, Kumar said India and US are yet to reach an agreement on the tariff lines on 155 items by India and the reciprocal textile quotas alloted by US, and the countries would consult on this during Vajpayee's visit.
The policy envisages an action plan that aims at giving a further boost to exports, targetting $35 billion from the existing $15 billion over a five-year period, Rana said.
The policy would also look at promoting cotton exports, which have been languishing at around 46,000 bales against a export quota of five lakh bales for the current year, he said adding that there were no plans on hiking import duty on cotton.
Domestic stocks of cotton have been piling up with cotton mills preferring imports due to better quality as against Indian cotton, which is highly contaminated.
Urging the textile industry to strengthen itself to face the challenges from the dismantling of multifibre agreement trade quotas, post-2004, Rana said while the abolition of quotas would create new opportunities for developing countries, it would also expose them to additional competition from formerly restrained exporters.
"This problem will further be accentuated by the increasingly apparent trend of imposing various tariffs and non-tariff barriers by developed countries against exports from developing countries like India, with a sole intention of making US less competitive," he said.
