Weaveknit, weavers and knitters B2B exhibition held in Surat on July 23-25, 2022 attracted 158 Exhibitors and 27000+ Visitors. In an exclusive interview with the Textile Value Chain, Weaveknit Chairman Mr. Deepu Agarwal revealed his hopes and details of his journey promoting Weaveknit.
Idea Generation , Journey for Weaveknit …
I had this idea around 4-5 years ago. I used to visit China and we also import some of the raw materials from there. So, I always thought that why is our fabric not sold in the similar way. It is then when I realised that we never got a platform like this to showcase our fabrics to the customers from around the world, like they do in China. Later, when Ashish Bhai became the Vice-President of the chamber and Himanshu Bhai the exhibition chairman, I presented this idea over to them. I had this in mind from a long time and discussing it with them made it easier to execute the event.
Initially, people thought that weavers won’t be interested in this and they don’t have that many products to be displayed. For example, I have the rapier jacquard unit and I have many products to be displayed. Ever since the introduction of rapier jacquard, water jet and air jet looms, we have a variety of fabrics to be displayed to our customers.
This is the second edition of this exhibition. How has it been as compared to the first edition.
The first time we had our exhibition, it was the Covid year. The second wave had caused a lot of damage to our plans. We were scheduled to have the exhibition from 11th to 13th September. We were supposed to get the possession of the dome on 7th September, but there was a make-shift hospital for the Covid patients over here. We ourselves were not sure if the exhibition would take place or not. Adding to this, there were some issues of transport as well. So, we had not contacted all the visitors for the event. On the Other hand, this time we are well prepared. We have even given 5-6 stalls to the agents, who in turn have brought in their customers for the event and there are other visitors as well. What happens is that, when people from outside come to the Surat markets, there have limited time, they buy exactly what they have to buy, complete their work and leave. But now, they have been able to see a lot of products due to this exhibition, which they can buy and then sell over at their respective places. In this way, the demand for our products will increase.
The upcoming third edition of this exhibition will take place soon as announced today. What will the thing that will attract the customers for this event? What will be the uniqueness of this event?
In this edition, we focused more on rapier jacquard and water-jet. We want to include denim in the third edition, as there are 8-10 factories in Surat now. When we talk about denims, people think about Ahmedabad first. We want them to consider Surat as well for denim. Next year, we will have the stalls for denim along with different types of other fabrics. We will try to bring in customers from US, Europe and China as well.
What are the various new and innovative things that Radhey has in store for its exhibitors and visitors?
Radhey has always kept its unique identity and we always strive to provide different types of designs to our customers. This time we have made around 750 new designs, out of which we have launched 40 designs here, all of which our customers have liked so far.
