Arvind Limited, an India-based integrated textile manufacturer producing cotton shirting, denim, knits and bottomweight fabrics, will take advantage of the Product Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme recently announced by the government and invest in the man-made fibre (MMF) segment. The company will also continue its expansion in technical textiles.
“It is a very exciting time for us in India as for the first time ‘China plus One’ is becoming real, and it is amazing to see the level of focus from the policy side on our industry,” Kulin Lalbhai, executive director, Arvind Limited, said today at the ‘Interactive Cotton Webinar’ coinciding with Global Cotton Day and Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav and CITI CDRA Golden Jubilee Celebrations.
“Every month one mega announcement is coming, and we are very excited right from RoDTEP, and then RoSCTL and now PM MITRA and the PLI scheme. At Arvind we are going to support and participate in all of these. With PLI we hope to come in strongly into the man-made fibre (MMF) and continue expanding in Technical Textiles,” said Lalbhai in the presence of Union minister of textiles, commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal.
Speaking about the plug n play model, Lalbhai said “We have experienced it globally in Ethiopia and seeing the same coming in India, it can be a game changer for a lot of MSMEs and large companies.”
While there is a need to scale up the MMF and technical textiles segments and diversify products, the competitiveness of Indian cotton will be important, as cotton value chain is the golden goose which should not be killed, according to Lalbhai.
Pointing out the need for the Indian government to sign in free trade agreements (FTAs) with major apparel exporting countries, Lalbhai said, “One big opportunity we are missing is that China is eating the world trade as far as fabrics is concerned. Whether it is Bangladesh, Indonesia or Vietnam, China has 80 per cent market share in fabrics. Most of these countries have import duties on Indian fabric and none on Chinese fabrics.
“Even the infrastructure bottlenecks are preventing us from becoming the fabric hub in South Asia. That is the big opportunity we can unlock.”
Finally, bringing the focus on the domestic market, Lalbhai said that a fair and just GST will be important. “Kapada (clothing) should be a very democratic commodity. Seeing it at a potential 15 per cent duty at some day worries us,” he concluded.
