Govt eyes $10-billion technical textiles exports in 3 years

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Friday said it was time for India to target a five-fold rise in its annual technical textile exports in there years to $10 billion.

After decades of policy bias toward cotton-based textile products, the government recently made concerted efforts to boost manufacturing of technical textile items through a Rs 10,683-crore production-linked incentive scheme. Under this, incentives will be provided for five years for incremental production in 40 man-made-fibre (MMF) garments, 14 MMF-based fabrics and 10 technical textile segments.

Speaking to representatives of the Indian Technical Textile Association in Delhi, Goyal highlighted that the technical textiles segment has gained momentum in the past 5 years and is currently growing at 8% per annum. “Our aim is to hasten this annual growth to 15-20% range during next 5 years,” Goyal said.

At present, the global market for technical textiles is as large as $250 billion, while India’s share in it is just $19 Billion.

A leg-up to technical textiles is going to boost overall exports of textiles and garments. Already, the government has set an “aspirational” target of $100 billion for textiles and garment exports over the next five years. Goyal had earlier called on the industry to take advantage of a global market shift where China is pruning its market share in the labour-intensive segment.

India’s textiles and allied product exports stood at just $30.4 billion in FY21, down 10% from a year before due to the Covid crisis. In the first five months of this fiscal, such exports jumped by 87% on year to $16.6 billion, aided by strong economic recovery in key markets such as the US and the EU. Still, the target remains much too ambitious.

Export tax refund schemes like the RoDTEP and RoSCTL have also been launched in recent years to improve the country’s export competitiveness.