India’s textile minister Piyush Goyal urges apparel exporters to prioritise Indian raw materials, aiming to boost domestic supply chains and achieve $40 billion in readymade garment exports by 2030.
The government’s initiatives, like the PM MITRA Park, aim to enhance industry competitiveness and address challenges like scale and infrastructure.
As the chief guest, Goyal emphasised the importance of building domestic supply chain capacities to sustain the health of India’s entire textile ecosystem. He highlighted the significance of every industry element and cautioned against choosing low-cost, substandard goods over domestic products. He clarified that the concept of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India) is about opening India’s doors wider, not closing them, by supporting domestic suppliers and developing a domestic ecosystem.
Goyal mentioned the ‘40 by 30’ goal, aligning it with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to make India a developed nation by 2047. He proposed expanding textile exports to $100 billion through collective efforts, noting that increasing readymade garment (RMG) exports from $16 billion to $40 billion by 2030 would significantly benefit the industry. He mentioned the government’s initiatives to boost exports, including free trade agreements and promoting brand India.
Applauding the industry, Goyal said, “The encouragement we received from the industry led to 55 per cent exports growth from $500 billion to $776 billion in both merchandise and services exports in the last two years between 2021-23.”
The event began with the ‘40 by 30’ themed Focus Group Discussion (FDG) covering various topics such as Making Indian apparel more competitive; Strengthening Industry Academia Linkage; Exploring new frontiers with MMF; and Compliance and Sustainability – How to make it India’s edge?
Rohit Kansal, additional secretary, ministry of textiles, Deepak Seth, founder and chairman, Pearl global industries Ltd, Nitin Prasad, managing director, PVH supply Indian sub-continent and GOC, Dr Ajay Sahai, director general and CEO, FIEO and Naren Goenka, chairman, AEPC discussed the topics with industry experts.
Speaking at the power group during the event, Naren Goenka, chairman of AEPC, said, “The Indian apparel industry has been able to withstand the hard and testing times during the pandemic. Despite global demand being stagnant, Indian apparel exports grew at a rate of 30.35 per cent in 2021-22 over 2020-21, and 1.10 per cent in 2022-23 over 2021-22. While we commemorate this success today, we are also vigilant of the fact that India’s apparel exports have remained constant at around 3-4 per cent of the global export share over the past 3-4 years.”
One of the major issues affecting the poor export competitiveness of Indian Apparel is the lack of economies of scale. The apparel industry comprises 80 per cent of exporters with a turnover of around ₹10 crore. The average number of machines in Indian apparel manufacturing units ranges from 250 to 400, while competing countries have an average of 800 to 1000 machines. Additionally, there are hardly any vertically integrated units in India, unlike in Vietnam and other competing countries. Both factors limit the industry’s capacity to invest in productivity enhancement technologies.
Responding to industry queries about scale and infrastructure, Rohit Kansal said, “The global market is a trillion-dollar industry and so even when we reach $100 billion of textile exports, we will only be 10 per cent of total textiles trade. From that perspective, the target $40 billion seems eminently achievable. Our PM MITRA initiative seeks to address the issues flagged by the industry such as scale, investment, and infrastructure. The size of the PM MITRA Park is at least 1,000 acres which is supposed to be vertically integrated. It addresses the issue of land acquisitions as it is acquired. It addresses issues of clearances because all clearances have been provided. It also addresses the issue of state support as special purpose vehicle (SPV) is being headed by state as they run the park.”
“We are looking at $10 billion investment in the park and $500 million has already been given either by infrastructure support or development support to the businesses in the park,” Kansal added.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (KUL)