SIMA welcomes the India-UK FTA

Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) has lauded the union government for signing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the UK.
In a statement, SK Sundararaman, SIMA chairman said, “India’s total textile and clothing exports was around 2,370 million USD in 2017-18. But it was reduced to 2,199 million USD in 2024-25 due to tariff disadvantage. The total UK exports of textiles, ready-made garments of all textiles account for around 70% and cotton yarn, fabrics, made-ups, handloom products accounted for 15%.”
As per the signed FTA, 10% to 12% tariff levied by UK on Indian shirts, trousers, women’s dresses and bedlinen and 4% to 8% tariff levied on yarns and fabrics would become zero, he said, adding that India-UK FTA has given new sigh of relief when the Indian textile industry is struggling with the slowdown in the US exports due to the steep increase and uncertainties of US reciprocal tariff rates.
He said that the exports of home textiles especially the kitchen linen from clusters like Karur had been struggling with the tariff disadvantage when compared with countries like Pakistan and the sector would now soon be able to double its exports to the UK.
“UK being the second largest market for ready-made garments, the zero-duty access would bring huge investments across the value chain and make all the seven PM MITRA Parks, PLI scheme, the technical textile NTTM scheme and all other State and Central Government textile industry related schemes a grand success. The country would be able to utilize 20 to 30% surplus production capacities in the entire textile value chain and grab the export opportunities thrown out by India-UK FTA in a short span of time,” he added.