“I strongly believe in ‘Be Indian and Buy Indian’, and I think each one should make a conscious decision to buy products made in our country,” said Gautam Hari Singhania, Chairman and Managing Director, Raymond Limited, India’s largest textile and apparel brand.
In an interview with IANS, Singhania said India is a very large economy with 1.3 billion people. “While the world looks at us as a market, I think we should look within for our products which are best in the world,” he added.
“I believe, Be Indian Buy Indian will help revive local consumption,” he said. “We need to come up with something more suitable for our country that will empower us to give the much needed boost to our economy.
“For instance, it is imperative for India to continue to host IPL matches on its soil to give fillip to economy and sentiments of people of India as we are coming out of the impact of the pandemic. India can certainly handle such a high-profile sporting event, if UAE can,” Singhania said.
On the impact of COVID-19, he said, “Given the discretionary nature of the Textile and Apparel industry, the pandemic has affected us. With the lockdown, all factories were shut and demand came to a standstill. In this backdrop, the Indian textiles industry accounting for roughly 14 per cent of the total industrial output and a key contributor to the economic activity has also been adversely impacted.”
Raymond is challenging costs restructuring operations to mitigate the impact. “At Raymond, we are challenging all costs and have also implemented restructuring to ensure efficiencies.
“In line with the prevailing market conditions, the company has undertaken the process of cost rationalisation and various cost control measures related to sales and marketing, manpower, rentals and others to minimise the impact on business due to the pandemic,” Singhania said.
