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admin
PublishDate：
2005-08-03 14:26:00
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China reported offer to transfer its silk production technology to India, in return for withdrawing the anti-dumping cases against imports from that country, merits serious consideration.
The silk sector in India needs to be modernised, it has go grow beyond cottage-industry status, and output levels have to improve.
Without these changes, even the anti-dumping cases will achieve nothing because today exporters cannot survive with stocks piled up.
Both India and China depend on each other to sustain their booming domestic silk sectors. While China needs a major importer like India to dispose of its surplus silk output, India relies heavily on this imported silk for sustaining its exports of value-added silk products.
Indeed, while India's domestic and export markets for silk products are growing, local silk production has been more or less stagnant for quite some time, at around 15,000 tonnes a year.
This leaves a gap of roughly 10,000 tonnes between indigenous supply and demand. There is, therefore, merit in the Chinese argument that Indian importers buy cheap Chinese silk basically for re-export after value addition.
Indeed,if this source of raw material dries up on account of the anti-dumping action, it will only harm India's silk exports.
On the other hand, it remains true that dumping by China of cheap silk, coupled with the low import duty, has been hurting Indian silk growers, who number in millions and include a substantial proportion of tribals.
So much so that the Jammu and Kashmir government has recently had to step in with price support measures to help local silk rearers.
In China, on the other hand, silk production has already been corporatised, with permission given for foreign direct investment in the sector.
So far as technology transfer is concerned, India can surely benefit from its induction. China claims to have developed technology that helps produce good-quality silk at low cost, which it now says it is willing to share with India.
However, the superiority of the technology needs to be ascertained, especially since India has recently acquired good technology from Japan and other sources.
Traditionally, India has been the only country in the world which produces all the five known commercial varieties of silk mulberry, tasar, oak, eri and muga.
However, most of these silks are not ideally suited for high-speed powerlooms and the industrial sector. Moreover, with the emergence of bivoltine silk produced through hybrid insects, which can be processed with modern technology and is of good quality, the demand scenario has changed the world over.
Earlier bids by India to produce bivoltine silk did not meet with the desired success because the appropriate silkworm breed that could thrive and perform well in the tropical climate was not available.
The attempts to acclimatise bivoltine silk insect races to the agro-ecological conditions of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu did not bear fruit.
The country ultimately had to get this technology from Japan. However, now indigenously developed sericulture (silk production) technology packages are also available for different silk-producing regions of the country.
Of course, these are yet to penetrate the traditional silk producing belts. So, while the scope for induction of new technology is enormous, that technology is already available in the country.
It also seems obvious that the issue is not just technology, but also of scale and organisation. India's silk industry is decentralised, and so structured as to prevent the inflow of large amounts of capital.
Nor is technology induction easy in such a system. These issues also need to be addressed.
The silk sector in India needs to be modernised, it has go grow beyond cottage-industry status, and output levels have to improve.
Without these changes, even the anti-dumping cases will achieve nothing because today exporters cannot survive with stocks piled up.
Both India and China depend on each other to sustain their booming domestic silk sectors. While China needs a major importer like India to dispose of its surplus silk output, India relies heavily on this imported silk for sustaining its exports of value-added silk products.
Indeed, while India's domestic and export markets for silk products are growing, local silk production has been more or less stagnant for quite some time, at around 15,000 tonnes a year.
This leaves a gap of roughly 10,000 tonnes between indigenous supply and demand. There is, therefore, merit in the Chinese argument that Indian importers buy cheap Chinese silk basically for re-export after value addition.
Indeed,if this source of raw material dries up on account of the anti-dumping action, it will only harm India's silk exports.
On the other hand, it remains true that dumping by China of cheap silk, coupled with the low import duty, has been hurting Indian silk growers, who number in millions and include a substantial proportion of tribals.
So much so that the Jammu and Kashmir government has recently had to step in with price support measures to help local silk rearers.
In China, on the other hand, silk production has already been corporatised, with permission given for foreign direct investment in the sector.
So far as technology transfer is concerned, India can surely benefit from its induction. China claims to have developed technology that helps produce good-quality silk at low cost, which it now says it is willing to share with India.
However, the superiority of the technology needs to be ascertained, especially since India has recently acquired good technology from Japan and other sources.
Traditionally, India has been the only country in the world which produces all the five known commercial varieties of silk mulberry, tasar, oak, eri and muga.
However, most of these silks are not ideally suited for high-speed powerlooms and the industrial sector. Moreover, with the emergence of bivoltine silk produced through hybrid insects, which can be processed with modern technology and is of good quality, the demand scenario has changed the world over.
Earlier bids by India to produce bivoltine silk did not meet with the desired success because the appropriate silkworm breed that could thrive and perform well in the tropical climate was not available.
The attempts to acclimatise bivoltine silk insect races to the agro-ecological conditions of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu did not bear fruit.
The country ultimately had to get this technology from Japan. However, now indigenously developed sericulture (silk production) technology packages are also available for different silk-producing regions of the country.
Of course, these are yet to penetrate the traditional silk producing belts. So, while the scope for induction of new technology is enormous, that technology is already available in the country.
It also seems obvious that the issue is not just technology, but also of scale and organisation. India's silk industry is decentralised, and so structured as to prevent the inflow of large amounts of capital.
Nor is technology induction easy in such a system. These issues also need to be addressed.
