New Delhi, (Samajweekly) Centre’s decision to form a dedicated Export Promotion Council (EPC) for ‘Technical Textiles’ will boost exports and strengthen the domestic manufacturing capacity, industry players said.
In terms of parlance, this category comprise of utility based textile products such as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
In February 2020, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) had approved the setting up of a National Technical Textiles Mission (NTM) with a total outlay of Rs 1,480 crore which will be implemented during 2020-21 to 2023-24.
Setting up of a dedicated Export Promotion Council is one of the four components of the NTM which is aimed mainly to achieve a 10 per cent growth rate every year until NTM ends.
Currently, India’s export is $93 mn whereas global market is estimated to be $11 bn for 12 apparel products under technical textiles.
The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman A. Sakthivel said: “Of the 207 items notified as technical textiles in January 2019, there are 12 products of apparel. The global market for these 12 products is estimated to be $11 billion, though India’s exports is only $93 million.”
“This indicates a huge potential in these products if dedicated export promotion activities are undertaken for these products.”
He said the inclusion of technical textiles in the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme will usher in overall growth via this sunrise sector.
Besides, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry’s (CITI) Chairman T. Rajkumar said that ‘Technical Textiles’ is being seen as the sunrise sector which has received significant attention worldwide.
“With the increasing usage of technical textile products among segments like automobiles, civil engineering and construction, agriculture, medical, shipping, industrial safety, sports and personal protection etc., the technical textile has a bright and promising future in India,”
According to Rajkumar: “Government has set up a target of the market size of US$ 350 billion to be achieved by 2024-25 from the current level of US$ 167 billion, for the T&C Sector. The said target cannot be only achieved by showing growth in the conventional segments like Cotton and MMF segments. Until and unless, we go for out of box solutions and show tremendous growth in the technical textiles, achieving the market size of US$ 350 billion looks highly unlikely.”
“Hence, in the present backdrop, the decision of setting up of a dedicated Export Promotion Council is a step in the right direction.”
He pointed out that “till now, India has been a net importer of technical textile products and the penetration level of technical textiles in India is very low at 5-10 per cent against 30-70 per cent in advanced countries.”
