Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman Dr A Sakthivel thanked the government for declaring Noida as a Town of Export Excellence for apparel products saying it would help set up expensive facilities for common use by exporters in the region.

“I would like to thank Commerce Minister  Piyush Goyal, Commerce Secretary Mr Anup Wadhawan and Director General of Foreign Trade Mr Amit Yadav for accepting AEPCs request of declaring Noida as a Town of Export Excellence for apparel products,” Dr Sakthivel said following a public notice on the same by Directorate General of Foreign Trade.

Recognition entitles the Common Service Providers in the area to avail the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme

“The recognition entitles the Common Service Providers in the area to avail the Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme, which in turn would enable them to provide advanced technologies and services to the 700 existing apparel industries in Noida,” he said.

Common Service Providers are critical to the apparel industry as they help in reducing the cost of technology by providing common services like specialized knitting, dyeing and embroidery, which require high end machines. But due to their limited use, these machines are not procured by MSMEs.

“We have also requested for including apparel clusters like Faridabad, Delhi and Erode in the list of Towns of Export Excellence. Faridabad and Delhi have turnovers of Rs 5,880 crore and Rs 5,894 crore respectively, way more than the requirement of Rs 750 crore turnover from a town to get the tag,” Dr Sakthivel said.

The Chairman said that the suggestions from AEPC have been shared with the Board of Trade for including these apparel clusters in the list of Towns of Export Excellence. These cities provide a huge amount of employment with value addition, he added.