CITI Hails Government's Decision to set up Export Promotion Council for Technical Textiles

New Delhi: Confederation of Indian Textile Industry's (CITI) Chairman T Rajkumar welcomed the decision of the Central Government for the formation of a dedicated Export Promotion Council for Technical Textiles. Rajkumar said, "the Technical Textile is being seen as the sunrise sector of the textile industry and has received significant attention worldwide.

With the increasing usage of technical textile products among segments like automobiles, civil engineering and construction, agriculture, medical, shipping, industrial safety, sports and personal protection etc., the technical textile has a bright and promising future in India. Rajkumar said, "the Government has set up a target of the market size of $350 billion to be achieved by 2024-25 from the current level of $167 billion, for the T&C Sector. The said target cannot be only achieved by showing growth in the conventional segments like Cotton and MMF segments. Until and unless, we go for out of box solutions and show tremendous growth in the technical textiles, achieving the market size of $350 billion looks highly unlikely. Hence, in the present backdrop, the decision of setting up of a dedicated Export Promotion Council is a step in the right direction."

Rajkumar further stated that despite several concerted efforts from the Government, this sector has not gained momentum till now. In February 2020, Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi had approved the setting up of a National Technical Textiles Mission (NTM) with a total outlay of Rs 1,480 crore which will be implemented during 2020-21 to 2023-24. Setting up of a dedicated Export Promotion Council is one of the four components of the NTM which is aimed mainly to achieve a 10 per cent growth rate every year until NTM ends. CITI Chairman pointed out that "till now, India has been a net importer of technical textile products and the penetration level of technical textiles in India is very low at 5-10 per cent, against 30-70 per cent in advanced countries. The National Technical Textiles Mission aims at improving the penetration level of technical textiles in the country. With the announcement of favourable policies from Government, production and investment in technical textiles in India are picking up slowly and the recent decision of setting up of export promotion council will boost the export as well".

Rajkumar also appreciated the move of the Central Government inviting proposals from Exporter Associations and Trade bodies registered under Companies Act or Society Registration Act for the constitution of a dedicated EPC for Technical Textiles. CITI Chairman hoped that the above decision will help the Indian textile industry achieve new milestones in the technical textiles as the industry is still at a budding stage with significant growth prospects.