VOC Port’s facility for handling raw cotton

Adhering to the ‘Ease of Doing Business’ initiative, the raw cotton storage facility, to accommodate around 500 TEUs, was planned in the Customs-bonded area of Dakshin Bharat Gateway Container Terminal. The cotton can be stocked for a period of 30 days free of cost. Customs has issued the necessary guidelines for handling imported raw cotton and its storage in the facility.

The facility will allow international cotton traders to bring the commodity and store it in the port yard and sell the cotton either to the mills in India or have the leverage of selling it to other countries as well. It is pertinent to note that the facility will aid textile mills in getting cotton at international prices within a short span of a week, thereby increasing yarn production in Tamil Nadu. The facility will also have a rippling effect by strengthening the textile value chain, particularly knitting, weaving, garmenting, textile processing, apparel sector, etc. In order to give impetus to the import of containerised raw cotton, V.O. Chidambaranar Port has agreed to levy nominal rent on the containers carrying raw cotton handled at the port by traders.

In the second phase, a Free Trade Warehousing Zone (FTWZ) will be established in the Port estate with world class infrastructure for warehousing of raw cotton, having stateof-the-art equipment, transportation and handling facilities, commercial office space, water, power, communications and connectivity, with one-stop clearance of import and export formalities. The port has identified 52.40 hectares of land in the Port area for setting up the FTWZ and is in the process of finalising the detailed project report for the same.