Asian Textiles Conference TEXCON
Staff Reporter / NEW DELHI
Union Textiles Minister Piyush Goyal has stressed on innovation across all value chains in the Textile sector. He urged the Textile sector to focus on recycling and digitization.
In his Keynote address at the 10th Edition of Asian Textiles Conference TEXCON in New Delhi today, Mr Goyal said that the role of Textiles sector has been extremely important in the last 75 years and now also it has crucial role in expanding the economy. He asked the Textiles Industry to take benefit of National Technical Textiles Mission. Mr Goyal said, there should be thrust on high quality products and scale to meet the growing needs of world market.
Goyal said that textiles sector can reduce the pressure on the environment by using reusable resources as well as reduce its own production costs.
Minister said that digitisation is another area which can help optimise the entire value chain in the sector. He expressed satisfaction at the fact that the industry captains are talking about digitisation. In current era of information technology, every industry is benefitting from new technologies like blockchain and more. He suggested that the industry should think about high quality products and elementary products like zip and embellishments, which the Indian textile industry imports at present.
Complementing Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, CITI, for bringing together all stakeholders of the Textiles value chain on one platform , the Minister said that the theme, ‘Reimagining the Textile and Apparel Industry for the Next Decade’ is very appropriate, specially with Indian textile exports aiming to reach the target of $100 billion by 2030. He appreciated the forward looking approach of the 10th edition of the Asian Textile Conference.
CITI and Egyptian Cotton also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in the presence of the Minister, Shri Piyush Goyal. Both the industry bodies will work together for mutual benefits.
Minister of State for Textiles, Smt. Darshana Vikram Jardosh in her address, urged the captains of the Indian textile and apparel industry to prepare themselves to face the challenges of structural shift in the global textile market.
In his address, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Upendra Prasad Singh, said that every industry and sector in India must play a role in achieving the target of becoming a developed nation in the next 25 years as per the vision of the Prime Minister. He said that the Indian textile industry has the strength to expand in the global market as it has a complete value chain. The government is working proactively to address the current problems of the industry, he added.
T. Rajkumar, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) in his welcome address said that the global textile industry is witnessing a reshuffle of the entire supply chain including the countries from which apparel is sourced. Terms like ‘China Plus One’, re-shoring, onshoring, etc are being commonly heard in interactions across the textile value chain. He said that the value of global textile and apparel exports stood at $828 billion in 2021, registering a growth of 8 per cent over $770 billion in the previous year.
The share of textile, apparel and handicrafts in India’s total exports was 10.62 per cent in 2021-22. In addition to being the largest producer of cotton and jute, India is the second largest producer of silk. The technical textiles segment too has an estimated 9-11 per cent share in the global market.