A two-day conference on “Industrial Textiles – Products, Applications and Prospects” is organized here by the Department of Textile Technology and Automobile Engineering of PSG College of Technology.

At the inaugural, Sanjay Chatrath, president and chief executive officer of Tire Cord and Polyester Yarn, SRF Limited, said that per capita consumption of technical textiles in the country at 1.7 kg as against 10 to 12 kg in developed countries, the potential is huge for the sector.

Further, non-wovens are heading for a deeper penetration in the automotives sector in addition to personal hygiene and healthcare and there is room for expansion.

As far as the entire value chain is concerned, developed regions in the country seem less competitive in upper segment of the value chain of conversion, processing, and fabrication. These activities are taken up mainly by medium-scale industry which is seeing growing investment.

Textile industry should set up pilot plants and there needs to be strong industry-academia interaction. Services of centres of excellence and research institutions need to be tapped by the industry.

The two-day programme includes six plenary sessions to deliberate on non-wovens, composites, coated and automotive textiles, abrasive textiles, testing, etc. There are four technical sessions and 40 technical papers will be presented.

Asia Pacific is the largest market for technical textiles, accounting for more than 40 percent market share. The Indian technical textile industry is growing at 20 percent year-on-year. The industry is witnessing a shift from use of conventional fibres to high performance, speciality fibres. Carbon fibre based composites are making rapid progress in not only aerospace and sports industries but also in textile equipment.