To promote further textile and apparels industry in North East states of India, Ministry of Textiles (MoT), and Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (Ministry of DoNER), Government of India, organized 1st North East Investors’ Summit in Shillong. The event, inaugurated by Union Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, witnessed over 80 buyers & leaders of textiles Industry. About 20 MoUs between various companies of export promotion councils, and associations took place. These MoUs focused on promoting collaboration in the textiles sector in each of these states in the North East Region and also to develop and promote NER handicrafts, handlooms, agrotextiles & geo-textiles in these areas.
Arvind Ltd. and Connect Studio (Nagaland) will work to operationalize apparel centres. Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), Creative Garments (Meghalaya), Fabric Plus to facilitate and handholding and monitoring in technical design, production, marketing and export–related matters and enhance production & exports of garments from apparel centres. Arvind Ltd. has a MoU with Pinnacle Skills (Nagaland) and Elam Industries (Arunachal Pradesh) and will support for technical design, production in apparel centres.
Similarly, the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) and Sneha Textiles from Tripura – to facilitate handholding and mentoring by Arvind Ltd. – agreed upon areas to operationalize the apparel centres. Harilloom Naga, Nagaland, Shopper’s Stop and EPCH in a joint venture took initiative on increasing the export of handicrafts by providing training, design and trend inputs platform for marketing in India as well as overseas markets. Carpet Export Promotion Council (CEPC) also has a MoU with local carpet exporters; besides the National institute of Design (NID) and The Ahmedabad Textile Industry’s Research Association (ATIRA) also have MoUs.
Besides the above, The Synthetic & Art Silk Mills’ Research Association (SASMIRA) also has an MoU with Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) for increasing the acceptability of agrotextiles.
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The Ministry of Textiles alone has sanctioned projects worth more than Rs. 1,040 crore for the North Eastern Region (NER). Recognising wide scope for silk sector in NER, the Government of India will support sericulture in the region with infusion of Rs. 820 crore. Textiles Minister Smriti Irani also launched India Handmade Bazaar Portal which will provide direct market access facility to handloom weavers and handicraft artisans, and announced that the master craftsmen from NER will teach at various NIFT centres across the country.
The summit was also attended by Dr. Arvind Panagariya, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog; Dr Mukul Sangma, CM of Meghalaya; Dr. Jitendra Singh; Union Minister of State (I/C), DoNER; Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of State for Home Affairs; Minister and representatives from all eight North Eastern States (Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura), besides investors across the country.
