Opportunities for Indian Textile Industry

Always more ups and downs in the Textile Industry and in this exclusive meet with Mr. V. Muthumani – Properitor of M/s. Balafoi International, he shared his opinions of the current textile senario & focusing the vision 2024 -25.

TEXTILE SENARIO

The textiles industry has made a major contribution to the national economy in terms of net foreign exchange earnings and contribution to the GDP. The textiles sector is the second largest provider of employment after agriculture. Thus, the growth and all round development of this industry has a direct bearing on the improvement of India's economy. Textiles exports from India will touch US $ 185 billion by the year 2024-25.

STRENGTHS OF INDIAN TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Availability of low cost and skilled man power provides competitive advantage to industry.
Availability of large varieties of cotton fibre and has a fast growing synthetic fibre industry.
India is one of the largest exporters of yarn in international market.
Growing economy and potential domestic and international market.
Industry has large and diversified segments that provide a wide variety of products.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR INDIAN TEXTILE INDUSTRY

The slow down in the Chinese economy has rendered the cost of textile production in China high. So, Chinese textiles manufacturers have lost competitive advantages of lower cost of production in the last few months. This has offered an opportunity for Indian textiles sector to grab the market share of China in the developed world, especially the European Union and the United States,which cumulatively comprise around 60 percent of the global export market. This is the right time to increase our market share in exports.

VISION 2024 -25

The Indian textile industry has strength across the entire value chain. Its share in the nation’s GDP is 6% and 13% in exports. After the phasing out of export quotas in 2005 India’s export performance has been below expectations. Its share of global exports is around 5% where as it was expected to rise quickly towards China’s level. The Chinese share in global exports is 39%. Vietnam and Bangladesh have shown remarkable success

GOVERNMENT OF INDIA - TEXTILE INITIATIVES

Taking innovative measures in partnership with the industry and learning from experience, India could aspire to achieve 20% growth in exports over the next decade. In any case the achievement of 15% growth rate in exports should be feasible. In the domestic market, sustaining an annual growth rate of 12% should also not be difficult.
This implies that with a 12% CAGR in domestic sales the industry should reach a production level of US $ 350 billion by 2024-25 from the current level of about US $ 100 billion for the domestic market.

The Government of India has started promotion of its ‘India Handloom ’initiative on social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with a view to connect with customers,especially youth, in order to promote high quality handloom products as India Handloom Brand. National Textiles Policy aims at creating 35 million new jobs by way of increased investments by foreign companies (expected to be 180-200 billion US $).

The Ministry of Textiles launched Technology Missionon Technical Textiles (TMTT), The objective of TMTT is to promote technical textiles by helping to develop world class testing facilities at eight Centres of Excellence across India, promoting indigenous development of proto types, providing support for domestic and export market development and encouraging contract research. The Ministry of Textiles has approved a' Scheme for promoting usage of geo technical textiles in North East Region (NER)' in order to capitalise on the benefits of geo technical textiles. The scheme has been approved with a financial out lay of Rs 427 crore (US$64.1million) for five years from 2014-15.

The Revised Restructured Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (RRTUFS) covers manufacturing of major machinery for technical textiles for 5 percent interest reimbursement and 10 percent capital subsidy in addition to 5 percent interest reimbursement also provided to the specified technical textile machinery under RRTUFS. Under the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP), the Government of India provides assistance for creation of infrastructure in the parks to the extent of 40 percent with a limit upto Rs 40 crore(US$ 6 million). Under this scheme the technical textile units can alsoavail its benefits.

Skill development under Integrated Skill Development Scheme will provided training to 1.5 Million people to cover all sub-sectors of textiles such as Textile and Apparel, Handicrafts, Handlooms, Jute and Sericulture.
Concept of Zero defect and Zero effect approach

Under the Make in India initiative, investment opportunities for foreign companies and entrepreneurs are available across the entire value chain of synthetics,value-added and speciality fabrics, fabric processing set-ups for all kinds of natural and synthetic textiles, technical textiles, garments, and retail brands. Already several foreign companies have invested in India. These include textile machinery manufacturers Rieter and Trutzschler; and apparel retailers like Zara and Mango (both from Spain),Promod(France),Benetton(Italy),etc.

Government has undertaken a number of steps to improve Ease of Doing Business in India,to function as single window for obtaining government clearances. Thegovernment has also proposed to extend 24/7 customs clearance facility at 13 airports and 14 seaports resulting in faster clearance of import and export cargo