Bengal Global Business Summit, 2016 was held on January 8 and 9 in Kolkata. Textiles & Clothing were one of the focus industries in this Summit. National and State leaders of the industry visited the Summit as delegates and panelists and the general reaction was that they all were pleasantly surprised.

Two breakaway sessions were held for Textiles – National Consultative Session (moderated by Sanjay K Jain, MD TT Limited) and State Consultative Session (moderated by Raj Dugar, MD Designer exports) to evolve a robust Roadmap for making Bengal a major hub for Clothing.

13 Textile Parks were launched under Project – TEXPRO BENGAL which would provide industry land, infrastructure, single window clearance, environment compliant infra, power apart from a host of subsides (capital, land, stamp duty, labour, power etc) under the Bengal textile Policy, 2013.

AEPC for the first time sent a delegation to review things on the ground lead by Mr Amit Goyal, Vice Chairman, EP, AEPC. They were very impressed with the policy initiatives and competitive advantage of Bengal. They also invited Principal Secretary, Mr Rajiva Sinha to their Head Office for presentating Bengal to their general members. Further they also promised to bring a much bigger delegation to Bengal in the near future.

Shri Rahul Mehta, President and CMAI and International Apparel Federation who was a panelist in the National Consultative Session on textiles on January 8th, also offered to get a international delegation after the IAF conference to be held in Mumbai later this year.

Mr V Elangovan who is the largest Indian Export Buying House, also promised to get a delegation of Indian export Buying Houses to Kolkata and also explore possibility of opening his own office there.

Leading retail chains like V Mart, Lifestyle also participated in deliberations.

Leading textile consultants of India like ILFS, Technopak and Wazir Advisors were also present on both days.

EOIs for more than 50% of the space offered under TEXPRO BENGAL were received.

Delegation of Bangladesh also showed interest in investing and leading Chamber FBCCI shared an EOI to shift from Gujarat to Bengal their plans for a large distribution depot for Bangladesh Garment Companies.

Shri Rajiva Sinha, Principal Secretary of MSME & Textiles in his free and frank address said that the Government is there as a friend and looks forward to industry to guide him on what all is needed to make Bengal a major T & C hub in the coming 5 years and increasing its share of Indian Textiles from 5% to 10%.

All attending National leaders said that Bengal has all the right things to become a major textile hub, just the perception change needs to be done. They felt that this Summit was a big step towards it, however many more steps needed to be taken to create the right buzz and showcase what Bengal has to offer to the Textile world.

Further to integrate and interact with the national and local industry, Partner Associations were made for TEXPRO Bengal which comprised of Apparel Export Promotion Council, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), Federation of Hosiery Manufacturers’ Association of India (FOHMA), The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council, The Clothing Manufacturers' Association of India, Bengal Hosiery Manufacturer's Association, Chamber of Textile Trade & Industry, Eastern India Garment Manufacturers & Exporters Federation, West Bengal Hosiery Association, Bangla Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Traders Welfare Association, West Bengal Bleachers & Dyers Association, Intimate Apparel Association of India.