Speaking on the lines of TECHNOTEX India 2016, Minister of State for Textiles (I/C) Santosh Kumar Gangwar said that the country’s textile sector managed to perform well in spite of challenging market conditions in the domestic as well as export markets.
“Despite poor market conditions, the textile industry did well as compared to other sectors on export front. Our textile exports remained at US $ 40 billion in 2015-16,” said Gangwar. However, in 2014-15, textile exports from India totalled US $ 41.4 billion. Not only the country has noted low exports last fiscal, the numbers are lower than the target of US $ 47.5 billion set by the Government of India for the textile and apparel sector. Industry professionals are of the view that the passive trend in export segment was due to sluggish economy in European and American markets, which are key export destinations for India.
Also Read – Maharashtra CM & Union Textiles Minister inaugurate TECHNOTEX ’16
However, the Textiles Minister is optimistic about the future and feels that technical textile is a booming sector which will drive growth for the country. “Based on past trends of growth and estimated end-user segment growth, the Working Group on Technical Textiles for 12th Five Year Plan (FYP) has projected the market size to US $ 28.82 billion for the year 2016-17 with a growth rate of 20 per cent,” he said, adding, “Technical textile sector is still at its nascent stage but it has been recognized as the fastest growing segment of the textile sector by the Government and industry stakeholders alike.”
