National Institute of Fashion Technology( NIFT), India’ s premium institute for fashion and garment technology is organizing its‘ campus placement week’ at its 7 centres from 23rd April to 5th May. Taking into consideration the current market conditions, especially in apparel exports which are on a declining trend, many believe that it may have negative impact on NIFT’ s placement also. This year, out of 2,750 pass-out students, nearly 2,500 opted to go for placement while rest 250 students are going for other options like higher studies, start-ups or are already selected in preplacement.“ Yes, overall business |
situation is tight and companies are not very enthusiastic to invest in fresh talent, but it is too early to say that this will have an impact on placements. We have invited nearly 2,400 companies including apparel exporters, domestic brands, retailers, interior designers, etc. This year, a company like Zomato( restaurant search and discovery service) is also participating in placement,” informed Amit Kumar Anjanee, Unit Incharge- Industry & Alumni Affairs, NIFT, Chennai.
Some industry watchers and HR Managers of the apparel industry feel that this difficult scenario may not only see less hiring but will also
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In 2017, apart from top companies from the textile industry, companies like Dorling Kindersley( publishing) also participated in the placement process.
have a negative impact on the salary packages.“ Overall in the industry, it is becoming difficult to retain existing talent, so it will obviously have an impact on new hiring. I feel that the packages could be reduced
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by nearly 20 to 25 per cent for fresh talent,” shared R. Gaur, VP – HR, Radnik Exports, Delhi. Radnik Exports is among the respected apparel export house of Delhi-NCR that participates enthusiastically during the placement process. According to a report of the Ministry of Textiles, the average annual salary during campus placement 2017 for the students from Master’ s programme was Rs. 4.62 lakh per annum whereas for the Bachelor’ s programme, the same was Rs. 3.87 lakh per annum. Among the 10 various programmes, placement percentage varied from 25 per cent to 83 per cent. |
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Bangladesh’ s National Board of Revenue( NBR) has hinted of keeping the source tax unchanged for the country’ s export sector, around 83 % of which is occupied by the apparel industry. NBR Chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan indicated this while speaking in a meeting with exportoriented business chambers and Economic Reporters’ Forum at NBR Auditorium, Dhaka, ahead of the upcoming budget preparation for 2018-19 fiscal.
During the discussion with Exporters’ Association of Bangladesh( EAB), the institution’ s Senior Vice President Md Hatem said:“ The prices of apparel items have gone down worldwide. Because of the falling prices, now, 80 % of the companies are suffering losses, 10 % are operating on break-even point, and the remaining 10 % are profiting.”“ At such a critical point, the tax at source is proving to be a real handful for business. You( NBR) need to fix the tax at source
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for export-oriented industries, including the apparel industry, for the next five years. This will help the entrepreneurs to formulate business policies,” he said. In response to such remarks, NBR Chairman Bhuiyan said that for the time being, they don’ t have any plans to raise the tax at source. Since this will be the Government’ s pre-election budget, there should not be many |
changes. The inflow of revenue from exports is lower than the amount of export. Some money is being kept abroad. Now, NBR is thinking that if it can impose source tax on master LC value. Among those present in the discussion were Rezaul Hassan, member of NBR’ s VAT policy, Firoz Shah Alam, member of NBR’ s Tax Policy, and Kanan Kumar, member of NBR’ s Income Tax Policy. Other |
senior members of export-oriented business forums were also present.
Currently, the tax at source for exports stands at 0.70 %. However, the export-oriented industries, especially the garment manufacturing, have repeatedly urged the Government to withdraw the levy, citing it to be a major obstacle in the growth of the industry.
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