The Hindu : Business : Build large capacities, textile units told

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 09, 2005

Business

Business

Build large capacities, textile units told

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, APRIL 8. In order to capitalise on the emerging business opportunities, the Indian textile industry should invest massively and build large capacities to improve productivity and reduce costs, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Exim Bank of India, T. C. Venkat Subramanian, said here today.

Delivering the keynote address at the two-day CompTex 2005, the textile conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry-Southern Region (CII-SR), in association with the Southern India Mills Association (SIMA), he said the industry should also focus on logistics and supply chain management to improve its efficiency while executing export orders.

It also had to invest in export infrastructure, brand creation, and education for those working in the apparel industry.

Explaining the importance of global brand building, Mr. Venkat Subramanian said while the Indian textile industry had the design skills and production facilities, it needed to build global retailing capabilities. In the global market, India had resource-based advantage as it was the third largest producer of cotton and fifth largest producer of man-made fibre. It had capacity-based advantage as it had the second largest capacity of spindles and fourth largest capacity of rotors. With strength in skills such as handwork and embroidery and textile technology, it also had skill-based advantage.

Inaugurating the conference, the immediate past Chairman of the Indian Cotton Mills' Federation (ICMF), B. K. Krishnaraj Vanavarayar, pointed out that with newer technologies emerging by the minute, awareness picking up rapidly, competition increasing by leaps and bounds, margins getting finer and with a new global economic order emerging, the mindset of the industry should change. "We have to develop an integrated perspective," he said.

Organisations such as SIMA and the CII would have to develop a vision for the industry and educate the industry, Mr. Vanavarayar added.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business