A. Sakthivel, president of Tirupur Exporters Association, handed over memorandum consisting of many demands to Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely on Friday. Among the many demands Tirupur knitwear exporters seeks inclusion of 59 additional items as “speciality fabrics” to avail the import benefits under Export Performance Scheme and sought absorption of premium for post-ship guarantee by the banks.

Mr. Sakthivel pointed out that the speciality fabrics, which were there in the existing list for availing the benefits under the Export Performance Certificate scheme, did not have the ones used by the exporters in Tirupur knitwear cluster.

Hence, they have given a list of 59 items that are widely used in Tirupur like 100 percent polyester filament single jersey fabric, cotton and modal blended fabric, and cotton and viscose blended fabric, among others, for enhancing competitiveness of Tirupur exporters.

The exporters also requested to enhance the service tax refund from 0.21 percent to 0.5 percent.

On the premiums, Mr. A. Sakthivel said that banks were deducting the premium amount to be paid for Export Credit Guarantee Corporation’s coverage against all export advances, from the exporters’ account.

He further added that since the post-shipment guarantee is mainly intended to benefit the banks, the cost of premium with respect to whole turnover post-shipment guarantee has to be absorbed by the banks and should not be passed on to the exporters to avoid paying double premium.