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The Textile Magazine
DECEMBER 2011
from the instability in yarn pricing,
labour shortage and major environ-
mental issues which later led to the
court order for complete closure of
all dying units are a few of the major
setbacks faced by the industry.
As a result, production houses in
Tirupur were not able to execute the
orders on hand. This had its nega-
tive impact and gave rise to credibil-
ity issues. But, of late, most of the
major dying units have commenced
production after getting Central
clearance.
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister,
Ms. J. Jayalalithaa’s announce-
ment of interest-free loan of Rs. 200
crores to revive the Common Ef-
fluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) in
Tirupur has given hope to the knit-
wear cluster there.
Mr. Sakthivel has hailed the Tamil
Nadu Pollution Control Board
(TNPCB) decision to permit reopen-
ing of CETPs at Angeripalayam and
Veerapandi, which would help 142
dyeing units resume operations and
achieve zero liquid discharge.
TEA has urged the Union Gov-
ernment to continue opposing the
European Union decision allowing
duty-free access to 75 tariff lines,
including 65 textile products, ex-
ported from Pakistan.
The appeal of knitwear exporters
had come in the wake of the recent
decision by India to withdraw its
earlier objection to the particular
unilateral trade concession offered
by the EU to Pakistan in the next
WTO meeting.
Mr. Sakthivel pointed out that In-
dia first raised its voice of concern
when the EU countries’ sop was ex-
tended to Pakistan as a relief meas-
ure to help that country come out of
the devastating floods last year, but
now deciding to call back the oppo-
sition.
“This bilateral move will have a
detrimental effect on the Indian tex-
tile industry as Pakistan is one of our
major competitors in the global ap-
parel market,” he added.
The signing of FDI and FTA with
the EU is expected to be a game
changer and hopes to revive this
industry back to its original scale.
This decision is an enabling policy
that will open up new windows of
opportunity to
modernize the
retail sector. The
Indian industry
will benefit to
a great extent
once global re-
tailers will start
setting up local
operations here
and
sourcing
products from
local manufac-
turers, particu-
larly from sec-
tors like handicrafts, textiles and
food processing.
The TEA President said: “FDI In-
flows within the textiles industry in
India will definitely be a boom for
garment manufacturers and export-
ers but will have a huge negative im-
pact on domestic retailers”.
During these hard times in the In-
dian textile industry, one nation that
capitalized on the opportunity was
Bangladesh. It is understood that a
large chunk of business has moved
from India to Bangladesh and Pa-
kistan as the cost of producing fin-
ished products is much less, even
after importing the raw materials
from India. But if the Foreign Trade
Agreement (FTA) gets approved by
the Government, there is a greater
chance of retrieving a huge por-
tion of this business back to India.
The next meeting related to FTA
is scheduled to be held in February
next.
Under the plan, it will conduct
road shows in Europe, the US, Japan
and China to get feedback for the re-
view to increase FDI in the sector.
The push is to invite technology
into the sector to make it more ex-
port oriented as the Ministry hopes
the technical textile segment in India
will attract investments worth Rs.
5,000 crores by 2012. This is quite
significant since the entire sector has
not been attracting much FDI.
The priority accorded to techni-
cal textiles is evident in the fact that
the Ministry, for the first time, has
proposed to set up a technological
mission for technical textiles in line
with that for natural fibres like cot-
ton and jute and special incentives to
attract FDI in this sector.
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