With the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) likely to hit a range of Indian exports, the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) has appealed to commerce minister, Nirmala Sitharama to give top priority to textile sector in the on-going study for a Free Trade Agreement with the Eurassian Economic Union (EAEU).

The ITF’s appeal has come on the heels of the government finalising first draft of the Joint Study Group (JSG) report on the feasibility of India-EAEU FTA.

In a letter to Sitharaman, ITF Secretary, Prabhu Dhamodaran said that there were tremendous opportunities for the Indian textile sector to exploit the Eurassian region.

He stressed that the Indian textile industry must expand to untapped markets to overcome the challenges raised by the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). He said ITF had already submitted the basic information regarding the scope for export of Indian textile products to Russia, the main country in EAEU.

The ITF secretary pointed out that while Russia had imported textile and apparel items worth 13.5 billion US dollar, of which apparel items accounted for 7.5 billion US dollar in the 2014 fiscal, India’s share was just 248 million US dollar of this huge Russian market.