Chairman of the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), Prem Malik has said that while the Indian textile industry’s long-term prospects “are undoubtedly bright”, it needs to introspect and explore areas where there is scope for scaling up and upgrading the fabrics sector. Malik’s comments came at the Natural Fibre Conclave in Coimbatore. He said that while the textiles industry in China was slowing down, Pakistan’s growth is headed for a saturation point, diversion of garment orders to India has already begun. “There is therefore a need to scale up and upgrade our fabrics industry,” he said. He said that despite being the largest producer of cotton and the second largest consumer and exporter of the fibre, India ends up importing cotton. “While India’s cotton production exceeds consumption, we continue to import cotton because of deficit in certain slots, especially the extra long staple cotton. We also face supply shortage of short staple cotton as there is little presence of BT technology in this segment.” The CITI chairman also stressed the need for enhancing the yarn consuming capacities within the country, but conceded that external factors such as a slowdown in the EU and policy jolts from China could have an adverse impact. However, he insisted that domestic issues too stand in the way of higher yarn consumption. “There are more crucial issues such as infrastructural infirmities, transaction costs — which are way above our competing countries — inordinate delays in getting duty refunds, high cost of export credit and many more,” he said. The most important policy intervention required at present is making Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) effective. He sounded a note of caution saying that the scheme has no funds available for new investments and the budget allocation is not enough even to cover the backlog of the last fiscal in full.
