The future for the Indian textile industry looks promising, buoyed by both strong domestic consumption as well as export demand as China is drifting away from textile manufacturing activities. With consumerism and disposable income on the rise, the retail sector has experienced a rapid growth in the past decade with the entry of several international players like Marks & Spencer, Guess and Next into the Indian market.

In the globalized environment, the State and Central Governments have brought several historical reforms, enabled ease of doing business and taken bold and proactive initiatives apart from announcing several unique schemes like Production Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme, Mega Investment Textile Parks (MITRA) Scheme, etc., to enhance the global competitiveness of the industry. The Government of Tamil Nadu has also removed the Agricultural Market Committee Cess on cotton and cotton waste that existed since 1959 to enable ease of doing business in the State. Now, we need to focus mainly on expediting the conclusion of FTAs with major export destinations, allocation of separate HS code for ELS cotton and removal of 10% import duty on the same, address issues due to inverted duty structure in MMF textile value chain and few other pending issues.

I appeal to all the stakeholders of the Indian textile industry to stand united to strengthen our representation and achieve the envisaged textile business size of USD 250 Bn by 2024-25 including USD 100 Bn exports.