India can beat China and Bangladesh in value-added garment exports, according to a top official of Li & Fung, which designs customised supply chain solutions for the world’s most successful retailers and brands. “In the current situation, there is a possibility of lot of business in value-added garment segment moving from China to India. It is because India has everything—be it raw materials base both for natural as well as man-made fibre, technical capability, labour force or thriving markets,” Manish Bharti, vice president and country head, Li & Fung India, told Fibre2Fashion.com “In fact, India has all ingredients to be successful in textiles and beat China and Bangladesh both,” added Bharti, whose office also looks after Bangladesh operations. In India, sectors like telecom and e-commerce are taking away the attention from textiles. But, if ‘Make in India’ initiative launched by the Government of India has to succeed, textiles has to play a very important and major role, according to Bharti. “India needs comprehensive textile policy considering all components and segments of entire value chain of textiles rather than segment specific approach, which will not yield any results,” said Bharti seated in Li & Fung India’s sprawling office in Gurgaon. At present, India office ranks number four in terms of overall sourcing volume at Li & Fung.
