Indian textiles, the so-called sunrise industry, is faring extremely well, particularly on the export front, the worldwide industrial slowdown notwithstanding. If the latest export figures released by the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) and the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) are anything to go by, the revised 12th Plan textile export target of $50 billion and generation of one crore jobs in the sector will be well within reach. Based on the current performance, CITI sources confirm that textile exports would register an annual growth of 18 per cent to touch $40 billion this fiscal. Similarly, AEPC is delighted to announce that apparel exports at $1,190 million in October marked a hefty growth of 31 per cent over the same month last year and that exports worth $8,259 million during April-October grew by 16 per cent compared to the same period in 2012-13. While timely investments in the right markets paid rich dividends, it was the overall effort at improving both yarn and product quality that contributed most for the encouraging export trend.
It may be recalled that immediately after taking over as Textiles Minister, Dr. K.S. Rao launched a vigorous drive not only to resuscitate the industry but to regain the losing overseas markets. The most important among the measures announced by him was the top priority accorded to technology upgradation. To avoid undue delay in submission of subsidy claims by mills, he insisted on online monitoring by banks of all TUFS cases so as to ensure that no subsidy claims are pending with the Ministry. The other promotional measures included a special allocation of Rs. 700 crores for development of technical textiles, assurance to the industry to sort out major issues like widespread power shortage and fluctuation in cotton and yarn prices, offer of additional incentives for incremental exports to the US, the EU and the Asian region, inclusion of the hitherto unexplored markets such as New Zealand, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria under the Focus Market Scheme, etc.
Of utmost significance in this context is the Indian industry’s growing preference for German textile machinery as evident in the import of machinery items worth about Euro 1.4 billion in the first half of 2013 which accounted for about 28.5 per cent of the total imports from that country. This is perhaps due to the guaranteed supply of quality machinery backed by outstanding German technology.