India has a huge potential to capture the market space by focusing on man-made fibre (MMF) that is vacated by China in the international textile market due to declining China’s textile exports, said Sunil Arora, CEO, Impluse Buying House while speaking at a seminar on "India as a sourcing hub and investment destination" on the last day of Textiles India 2017 trade fair in Gandhinagar.

Synthetic textiles made from MMF account for 70% of world textile supply and the rest is cotton.

China's annual exports are estimated to be $150 billion. Given the scale of exports from China, even a 1% shift means 10% increase in India's export. MMF and synthetic textiles is the future, Arora said.

Contrary to the global trend, cotton still commands more than 50% of India's textile production.

However, the synthetic textiles segment is gradually growing. The whole world is shifting towards MMF and India, too, has tremendous potential of growth in this segment, said Rakesh Mohan Joshi, chairperson, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).

According to Gautam Nair, managing director, Matrix Clothing, textile exports from India increased by 18% in February-April 2017 period after having remained stagnant for past three years.

With China's share in textile exports coming down, India has the potential to cater to the demand and cloth the world, Nair said. However, experts believe that there is a need to go for innovation in fabrics, integrate value chain and investment in skill development to boost textile exports from the country.

NITI Aayog CEO, Amitabh Kant, said that under investment in the sector is the biggest challenge in India. It has resulted into weaker value chain driving foreign buyers to other countries. Speed, innovation and digitization hold the key to India's success.

Speeding up negotiations with regard to free trade agreements (FTAs) with EU and Canada and labour laws reforms and logistics improvement are essential for the growth of textile sector.