1、中文 3150 字 毕业论文外文翻译 出 处： open economies review 作 者 S AMAR VERMAM 原 文： Export Competitiveness of Indian Textile and Garment Industry INTRODUCTION The international trade in textile and clothing sectors has been a egregious exception to the most favoured nation principle of GATT and, since the early 19
2、60s, has been a case of managed trade through forced consensus. However, the WTO Agreement on Textile and Clothing (ATC) marked a significant turnaround. According to the ATC,beginning 1st January 1995, all textiles and clothing products that had been hitherto subjected to MFA-quota, are scheduled t
3、o be integrated into WTO over a period of ten years. “The dismantling of the quota regime represents both an opportunity as well as a threat. An opportunity because markets will no longer be restricted； a threat because markets will no longer be guaranteed by quotas, and even the domestic market wil
4、l be open to competition”. From 1st January 2005, therefore, all textile and clothing products would be traded internationally without quota-restrictions. And this impending reality brings the issue of competitiveness to the fore for all firms in the textile and clothing sectors,including those in I
5、ndia. It is imperative to understand the true competitiveness of Indian textile and clothing firms in order to make an assessment of what lies ahead in 2005 and beyond. Owing to its significant contribution, the Indian textile and clothing industry occupies a unique place in the Indian economy. It c
6、ontributes about 4% of GDP and 14% of industrial output. Second largest employer after agriculture, the industry provides direct employment to 35 million people including substantial segments of weaker sections of society. With a very low import-intensity of about 1.5% only, it is the largest net fo
7、reign exchange earner in India, earning almost 35% of foreign exchange. This is the only industry that is self-sufficient and complete in cotton value chain- producing everything from fibres to the highest value added finished product of garments. Its growth and vitality therefore has critical beari
8、ngs on the Indian economy at large. What Is Competitiveness? Competitiveness is about productivity, which in turn is a function of factors related to cost of products, as well as those related to non-price factors such as delivery schedules, reliability of producers, and such intangible factors like
9、 image of the country/company and brand equity. Together, they define the competitive sinews of a product to compete under conditions of free market. However, in order to translate industry competitiveness into sales (greater export share in world market), another set of issues- in addition to produ
10、ctivity- need to be examined. These relate to market access conditions. Indeed, industry competitiveness of restrained exporters such as India was not much of an issue during the last almost four decades, ever since the Short Term Arrangement (STA) of 1961. And the reason lay not in price and non-pr
11、ice factors, but in the managed conditions under which global trade in textile and clothing products took place. In fact, it was precisely because of the price competitiveness of some Asian exporters in the 1950s and the 1960s that the “generally and solemnly agreed rules of post-war policy conduct-
12、 including the keystone of the system, the non-discrimination rules- were formally set aside for reasons regarded as pragmatic”. This system of managed trade, however, will come to an end on 31st December 2004. For the purpose of this study, industry has been defined as a group of firms manufacturin
13、g products that directly or indirectly competes with each other. It is implied that no nation can be competitive in manufacturing all goods and services. Hence, industry competitiveness of an entire nation is not quite meaningful. Instead, since it is the firms who compete in international markets,
14、the entire framework of competitiveness would revolve around the study of the firm. “industrial success was founded on behaviour of firms, not on the decisions of governments”. The list of products (industries) identified is in Appendix A. Objective & Scope Of The Study The objective of the project
15、is to evaluate the export competitiveness of Indian textile and clothing sectors. Because Indian textile and clothing sector is predominantly cotton based, this study would focus mainly on the cotton textile and apparel, and look at the entire value chain from fibre to garment and retail distributio
16、n. With the aforementioned objective in mind, this study has first identified the products in Indian export basket which have shown a promising growth in value, or in unit value and have a considerable weight in the Indian export basket on the basis of recent performance of Indian exports of textile
17、 and clothing sectors in the US and EU markets. Research Methodology In order to evaluate the demand-side of Indian textile and clothing exports, the study has analysed the competitive performance of Indian exports of the identifiedproducts in the US and EU markets. It has also been used to highligh
18、t the role of emerging trade policy environment- specifically, the role of discriminatory rules of origin in Regional Trading Arrangements RTAs, tariff peaks and environmental and labour standards- as market access issues relevant to textile and clothing exporting countries. To assess the supply-sid
19、e factors of export competitiveness, a preliminary interview was conducted with a few exporters. The interview sought their views and opinions chiefly in respect of the supply-side bottlenecks that they are facing in India. The supply-side framework is based more on opinions than on data/ numbers. The inferences about the supply-side factors are therefore based on the opinions expressed by exporters of identified products. GLOBAL TRADE IN TEXTILE AND CLOTHING: INDIAS COMPETITIVE
