Diversion of garment orders to India has already begun with the textiles industry in China slowing down and Pakistan’s growth - constrained by power and other problems and the garment industry’s growth in Bangladesh – is expected to reach a saturation point sooner than later. There is therefore a need to scale up and upgrade our fabrics industry said Prem Malik, Chairman, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry at the inauguration of the Natural Fibre Conclave held at Chinniampalayam in Coimbatore on Wednesday.

The Indian textile industry will need to introspect and look into areas where there is scope for scaling up and upgrading the fabrics sector as the industry’s long-term prospects are undoubtedly bright.

The CITI Chairman also stressed the need for enhancing the yarn consuming capacities within the country, admitting that external issues such as a slowdown in the EU and policy jolts from China could have an adverse impact. But there are more crucial issues such as infrastructural infirmities, transaction costs — which are way above the competing countries — inordinate delays in getting duty refunds, high cost of export credit and many more, he said.

The most important policy intervention required at present is making TUF effective. The scheme has no funds available for new investments and the budget allocation is not enough even to cover the backlog of the last fiscal in full.

India being the largest producer of cotton and the second largest consumer and exporter of the fibre ends up importing cotton. India continues to import cotton because of deficit in certain slots, especially the extra long staple cotton. Further as there is little presence of BT technology in this segment India has also been facing supply shortage of short staple cotton.