Goyal hits back at Rahul

Union Commerce and Industries Minister Piyush Goyal on Saturday slammed the Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, for attacking the India-US trade deal. Goyal called Gandhi “immature” and lacking understanding of the economy and accused the Opposition party of spreading misinformation as it had no constructive agenda to criticise the Government.

Goyal said Rahul Gandhi is “thousand miles away from the truth” and asserted “discredited leaders” like him may try but would not be able to stop Prime Minister Modi and his service to the nation.

“Rahul Gandhi does not have any understanding of the economy, only tweeting false and misleading information on social media,” the minister said in Mumbai.

 India’s cotton cultivation capacity and requirement both will grow. This policy of importing material and processing it for export is an old practice in global trade,” the minister said.

“Among the FTAs that India has pushed forward in the last few months, the textile sector’s contribution would be nearly USD half a trillion, which comes to about Rs 45 lakh crore, With the textile market now opened for us, it will benefit us. The United States alone procures textile products worth around Rs 9 lakh crore annually. Moreover, reciprocal tariffs on Indian goods have been reduced to 18 per cent from earlier 50 per cent,” Goyal said countering Rahul’s allegation that the trade deal will destroy the textile sector in India.

“We are lower than China, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia. India has received the lowest tariffs from the US compared to our competitors, and it has opened a USD 30 trillion market for India. I think it is a game-changer for the future progress of India,” he said.

The Union minister also noted that the European Union procures around Rs 22-23 lakh crore worth of goods from India, adding that textile products would be exported at zero duty to markets such as the EU, New Zealand, and the UK.

“The US produces around 480 million pounds bales of cotton every year, which is valued at Rs 1.25 lakh crore. It cannot damage the interests of India’s cotton growers. The US exports around Rs 45,000 crore worth of cotton. In my guess, India’s one region produces more cotton than that,” the minister said. The nation’s demand for cotton is much higher and it is rising, the senior BJP leader added.