With the fast changing trend, global apparel market is looking at more and more synthetic clothing due to which demand for Indian MMF is on raise. The Indian MMF export has gone up by 13 percent between $4 billion in April and January 2013-14 compared to the same period in previous year.

As per the industry estimates, cotton and man-made fabrics demand has been in the ration of 60:40 for the last many decades. But, after a long battle with the man-made fabric, cotton in the long term is likely to hold a smaller share of the growing clothing sector.

The Indian man-made fabric (MMF) industry is buoyant as cotton is no longer the king in global apparel market. The Surat MMF industry weaves around 3 crore metre of fabrics per day with the daily turnover of finished fabric, including sari, dress materials and upholstery pegged at Rs.110 crore. The annual production of fabrics is pegged at 9 billion metre, which accounts for 60 per cent of the total production of polyester cloth in the country worth Rs 30,000 crore.

Over eight lakh employees use 6.5 lakh powerloom machines, one lakh embroidery machines and 400 textile processing units in the city.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has turned out to be the top destination of Indian made fabric (MMF) with its export increasing by almost 35 per cent in April-January 2013-14. India exported $429 million worth of MMF to the UAE.

While, the US has emerged to be second largest export destination for MMF with 12 per cent increase at $352 million. The export of MMF to Pakistan, mainly contributed by Surat and Maharashtra, increased by 5 per cent at 100 million in April-January 2013-14.

The polyester filament fabric (PFY) was the main fabric exported from India worth $580 million followed by synthetic filament fabric and polyester viscose fabric at $346 million and $241 million respectively.

According to Federation of Indian Art Silk Weaving Industry (FIASWI), Surat contributes around 40 per cent of the nation's demand of polyester fabric. Thus, the city has a major contribution in the increase of MMF export. The direct export of fabric from Surat to various destinations is pegged at Rs 1,200 crore.

Synthetic and Rayon Textile Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) regional chairman Narain Agarwal said that Turkey, Brazil, Italy, Belgium, Sri Lanka, the Netherlands and Spain have emerged as the leading market for MMF fabric export in 2013-14. The trend is likely to continue in 2014-15 as well.

According to Agarwal, China Vietnam, India, Indonesia and Bangladesh are among the top five suppliers of textiles and clothing to the US, the United Kingdom and other markets in the world. To the US alone, India contributed around 8.30 per cent in its annual import of fabrics pegged at $100 billion.

With, synthetic fabric imports having increased by almost 20 percent in the international market over the last three years. According to Jitu Vakharia president of South Gujarat Textile Processors Association (SGTPA), in the next one year, the total export of man-made fabrics from Surat is likely to surpass Rs 1,500 crore per annum from the current Rs 1,100 crore.