New textile policy likely to be announced after Budget 2015 will give new direction to textile sector

The new national textile policy is almost ready and is expected to be announced immediately after the Union Budget. Textile Commissioner Kiran Soni Gupta informed after inaugurating the 60th National Garment Fair organised by Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) in Mumbai.

The textile sector will get a new direction and a huge support from the new policy as it has outlined all the aspects – the vision, strategy and the action plan.

Further, Gupta stated that 61 textile parks have been sanctioned, out of which 55 are presently operating. Another 13 textile parks are under consideration. Some of the textile Parks, like the ones at Visakhapatnam and Coimbatore, have shown excellent performance.

According to Gupta, technical textiles have very bright future as there has been good demand with good scope for the industry to expand the production capacity. The government has been also promoting North-East region with focus on agro-textiles and geo-textiles.

President of CMAI, Rahul Mehta said that the country’s apparel exports are likely to touch USD 17 billion in FY15 as compared to USD 14.7 billion last year. In 2014-15, the growth rate of domestic garment market will be 10 to 12 percent, while the growth rate of export market is expected to be around18 to 20 percent.

The growth in Indian textile sector was due to improvement in dollar-rupee parity, which has become favourable for the industry because of downtrend in Chinese economy and reduced competition from Bangladesh.

The 60th National Garment Fair is a B2B fair has 260 stalls displaying over 300 brands of summer collection. It covers men’s wear, women’s wear, kids wear, ethnic wear, intimate wear, etc. A footfall of 20,000 trade visitors is expected during the fair.