The textile industry of the Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu aspires to climb up the textile value chain and realise its true potential for which it is depending upon the central government, said an official of a trade body.
D Prabhu, Secretary of Texpreneurs Forum said while speaking to the media ahead of a conference titled, `Make in India-textile industry-opportunities & challenges’ being organised by various textile associations in Coimbatore.
“Except textile clusters like Karur and Tirupur, others in Tamil Nadu were lower on the value chain, which led to very thin margins and unless textile producers moved closer to the customers by adding value, they would not be able to bear the rising costs,” he noted.
Hence the aim of the industry was to move up the value chain to producing products like garments, made-ups, etc. There were certain weak links like fabrics processing which they want the central government to address so that they could reach full potential.
According to Prabhu, share of Tamil Nadu in yarn exports was nearly 60 per cent and share of the Tamil Nadu industry in overall Indian textile exports was nearly Rs 75,000 crore a year, of which garment exports was Rs 30,000 crore.
In spite of these achievements, he said, the industry has been facing several challenges like fluctuation in cotton prices and competition from countries like Vietnam, Pakistan and Bangladesh in apparel exports.
“Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh were eating in to India’s market share as their manufacturing cost was lesser than in India, so there is a need to keep manufacturing cost under control to remain competitive,” he added.
He was of the opinion that bilateral trade agreements between various countries and regions had impacted Indian textile and apparel exports. He cited Pakistan which was receiving duty-free status for its textile exports to the European Union, but not available to India.
He said four trade agreements which needed to be put on the fast track were with Bangladesh, with Latin America, with the European Union and finally the FTA with Russia.
He felt that Russia’s problems would be overcome over a period of time and it was necessary to concentrate on Russia, where India’s share was negligible, though it was importing Rs 80,000 crore of textiles and clothing per year.
