“India should step in at this stage to take the advantage although not a good way to project ourselves but every crisis has its own silver lining and I think while we are with China with all our emotions and financial, political and diplomatic help but still there appears to be a big economic opportunity which is coming up our way,” the textiles secretary said.
The government on Wednesday said the domestic industry should take advantage of the huge $20-billion space vacated in the global apparel market especially in the man-made fibre (MMF), by China, which is going through a tough time following the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus. “China vacated $20 billion dollar apparel space in the last 3 years and most of this was in the MMF sector,” textiles ministry said in a release.
As per the statement, technical textile is one of the high growth potential areas where expertise needs to be developed.
“National Mission on Technical Textile will help provide the requisite support to the manufacturing sector to make globally competitive,” it said.
Addressing a symposium on emerging opportunities for Indian textiles organised by the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts, Textiles Secretary Ravi Capoor said domestic textile exports have plateaued during the past 5-7 years, which is a “very worrying proposition for the government”.
“India should step in at this stage to take the advantage although not a good way to project ourselves but every crisis has its own silver lining and I think while we are with China with all our emotions and financial, political and diplomatic help but still there appears to be a big economic opportunity which is coming up our way,” he said.
He also said it would be the right time to bring the industry together and have a small dialogue to “see how the industry associations are prepared for this opportunity”.
On the issue of plateauing exports, he said the government understood that one of the major issues is that “take up the space that has been vacated by China other than this present crisis (coronavirus)”.
