The year 2014 for Karl Mayer Textilmaschinenfabrik in Germany began with a high-level visit from the Indian Textile Minister, Dr. Kavuru Sambasiva Rao, who visited the unit in early January this year.
Members of the Indian delegation who included his private secretary, Bhaskar Katamneni, the Consul General of India, Raveesh Kumar, and Krishna Javaji, the Managing Director of Eurotextiles, a trading company, took advantage of their visit to Heimtextil in Frankfurt and made a trip to nearby Obertshausen to meet this well-known manufacturer of warp knitting and warp preparations machines which are extremely active in India.
The visitors were welcomed by Arno Gärtner, the Managing Director, the Head of Sales of the Warp Knitting Business Unit, Oliver Mathews, representatives of the local agent, A.T.E., and the Sales Managers, Bastian Fritsch and Peter Obrist. This was followed by a company presentation, and a display of the latest generation of machines in the Modern Development Centre operated by the Karl Mayer Group.
Dr. Rao who was impressed by the modern production processes at Karl Mayer and the highest technical calibre of the machines, stressed that the innovative products can be of extreme importance for the development of the Indian textile industry. During the discussion, he asked several questions, and encouraged the traditional, medium-sized, family run companies to invest in India. As part of its strategy of manufacturing close to its markets, Karl Mayer has been running its own service subsidiary in Mumbai since 2009. Since then, the service operations have been expanded in India.
Arno Gärtner elucidated that India has been an important sales region for the warp preparation machines produced in Obertshausen for some time. Since the beginning of 2010, the demand for new warp knitting machines manufactured by Karl Mayer has increased considerably. He went on to say that this development has made India an important growth market for his textile machinery manufacturing company.
This positive development has also encouraged Karl Mayer look into setting up its own production centre in India at the beginning of 2014. Preliminary work on setting up assembly operations there is currently underway.
As an important contribution to the continuing process of modernisation in the Indian textile sector, Karl Mayer’s discussion partners mentioned incentives such as the Technology Upgrading Fund Scheme put in place by the Indian Ministry of Textiles.
