India slips from 2nd to 6th position in textile exports: Industry data

Category: General

Country: India

Region: Asia

By Morning Express
10th February 2024

Coimbatore: The industry has expressed concern that India, which was the 2nd largest exporter of textile products 10 years ago, has now fallen to the 6th position. After agriculture, the textile industry is the largest employment sector in India.

All the companies in the entire textile chain have been severely affected due to various reasons including lack of stability in the prices of key raw materials like cotton, and pressure on synthetic fibers imported from foreign countries in the name of quality control.

As this situation continues for many years, it has been reported that India has been pushed from the 2nd position to the 6th position in the export of textile products. China is at the first place, Bangladesh at the 2nd place, Vietnam at the 3rd place, Italy at the 4th place, Germany at the 5th place and India at the 6th place. 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th places are Turkey, USA, Spain and Netherlands respectively.

Industry experts have said that there are various reasons why India continues to face setbacks in the development of the textile industry.

In this regard, Dr. Sundararaman, President of the South Indian Panchalayal Association (SAIMA), and Rajkumar, former President of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industries (CITI), told the reporter of ‘Hindu Tamil Vektik’:

The central and state governments are continuously implementing various schemes for the development of the Indian textile industry. However, all the companies in the textile industry chain have been affected due to various reasons including the price of raw materials.

While India used to export about 120 million kg of yarn on an average every month, the yarn export decreased significantly to 30 to 50 million kg for a few months starting from April 2022.

Monthly yarn exports were close to 120 million kg a few months ago, but have now dipped below 100 million kg.

In today’s environment, there should be 200 million kg of yarn export every month. Instability in prices of key raw materials like cotton is the main reason why Indian textile exports have suffered.

Apart from this, stringent conditions have been imposed in the name of quality control to import synthetic fibers from foreign countries into India.

On the other hand, taking advantage of India’s concessions to Bangladesh, China is increasingly sending textiles through Bangladesh to the Indian market. While quality control has been imposed on synthetic fibres, the quality of such imported Chinese textiles should also be scrutinized.

The 11 percent import duty imposed on cotton should be completely abolished for the Indian textile industry to grow again.

A duty-free trade agreement with European countries and the UK should be implemented as soon as possible. The central government should already take steps to implement these agreements and take steps to conclude the agreements as soon as they are in the final stage. Quality restrictions on synthetic fibers should be relaxed. They said this.

Courtesy: Morningexpress.in