In a meeting with Giriraj Singh, Union Textile Minister, representatives of the Indian Texpreneurs Federation(ITF) outlined key growth themes for the textile industry in India. These included, scale, competitiveness, specialisation, integration, and market diversification.
The team emphasised, by establishing a ready-to-cut dyed fabric ecosystem in India, the SME apparel sector can enhance efficiency and cost competitiveness. It further highlighted the need to create semi-integrated and integrated manufacturing ecosystems to handle large volume commodity apparel exports.
During the meeting, the team presented a comprehensive report on ‘Opportunities & Challenges for the Indian Textile & Apparel (T&A) Sector’.
The report highlights, with suitable policy and directional changes, India can capitalise on the China Plus One opportunity in apparel exports and improve its current monthly run rate of $1.5 billion in a steady state manner. For comparison, China’s current monthly run rate of apparel exports stands at $12 billion.
To increase market share from the current 2 per cent in the United States MMF (man-made fiber) apparel market, which is valued at $35 billion, India needs to form knowledge partnerships with MMF-specialised countries and conduct similar initiatives within Indian clusters, the report notes.
As part of market diversification efforts, the team suggested targeting non-traditional markets like Japan, which has a $23 billion potential. They proposed selecting five exporting companies from each of the five major clusters and providing them with support as a team to foster a positive mindset and experience towards these markets.
Improving cotton yield to 1,000 kg/hectare could be a game changer for the entire textile value chain and boost farmer income. The discussion also included satellite mapping of cotton cultivation, new plans to boost e-commerce fashion exports, and addressing structural issues such as import duties on cotton and the inverted duty structure on MMF.
Singh assured his commitment to make all-round efforts to boost textile and apparel exports to create more jobs, and prepare a concrete working plan to improve cotton yield as a top priority. He also expressed his willingness to direct all policy measures to strengthen the competitiveness of manufacturing in the textile sector.
