Taiwanese manufacturers have come to woo the Indian textile industry with special items like yoga fabrics, don’t-need-to-wash denim and functional fabrics in tow.

In their first stop at Tirupur, a handful of Taiwanese companies are exploring the possibilities of selling their high-end fabrics in India and also looking for joint venture opportunities to set up manufacturing facilities here.

Known to produce innovative, value-added and user-friendly materials, the Taiwanese have displayed functional fabrics — with cool, are anti-perspirant and fire-resistant properties — and high quality performance fabrics used to produce lingerie, swimwear and sportswear.

Taiwanese company Tex Tile Enterprise has exhibited germanium fabric, also called yoga fabric, for the Indian market. "The garments made of this material will improve blood circulation, accelerate metabolism and support people when doing yoga," Tex Tile Enterprise sales manager Kyle Lin told ET.

Like all textile manufacturing countries, Taiwan too felt was adversely affected by global recession, with exports declining 10% reduction in calendar year 2008. "Our textiles are not cheap like Chinese ones, but we survive by making things that the Chinese do not," Taiwan Textile Federation project manager Jennifer Liu told ET.

But, Taiwan’s fabric exports to India is declining. Her Ching Knitting deputy general manager Martin Chiang said his company exported around $5 million worth of fabrics to India eight years ago, but this has dropped to less than $1 million today.

Compared to 28,603 tonnes of fabric exported to India 2007, it sold just 23,782 tonnes in 2008. Five years ago, the same figure stood at 52,180 tonnes.

Mr Chiang said UD and Europe emerged as the main markets when the company shifted to a new production line that churns out the materials of the highest quality, range and price. But it was now exploring the Indian markets once again "due to its vast domestic market and export potential," he said.

The enormity of opportunities available in India and cheaper production and marketing costs has tempted Taiwanese companies to work on joint ventures with Indian companies, especially for the manufacture of manmade fabrics, Ms Liu said. Soon after the inauguration of the Taiwan Textile Fairs in India 2009 at Tirupur on Monday, Taiwan-based Tex Tile Enterprise and Tirupur Exporters’ Association (TEA) president A Sakthivel’s company Poppys Knitwear began talks on a potential JV.

"Taiwan is the best place to source manmade fabrics. We are initially looking to import fabrics and later sourcing the technology and manufacture here through a JV," Mr Sakthivel said. He added the raw material is available in India but technology is needed to convert it into synthetic fabric.

India’s current fabric import is only 1% of its annual apparel exports. The country exported $10 billion worth of apparel in 2008-09, of which around $4 billion are knitwear products.

Mr Sakthivel said, the cotton knitwear has come to a saturation point and the country needs to look towards manmade fibres to increase its export potential. "We can double our apparel exports by January 2013 if we start manufacturing apparel made of manmade fibres," he added.

Apparel Export Promotion Council senior director DG Reddy said cotton apparel constituted 20% of the world apparel market, with manmade fibre taking up the rest.

"We can cater to the requirements of the American and European markets throughout the year with diversification to synthetic fibres along with cotton," Mr Sakthivel said.

After Tuesday, the Taiwan Textile fair organised by Taiwan Textile Federation, Bureau of Foreign Trade, Taiwan, Worldex Group with support from TEA, AEPC and the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry will move to Bangalore and later to New Delhi.

Source: Economic Times