The Indian textile and clothing industry should focus on innovation and technology and resolve to meet challenges successfully, Roop Rashi, Textile Commissioner, said at a virtual conference on Wednesday.
The Southern India Mills' Association organised a virtual CEO conference on the theme - "Competitiveness of the Indian Textile Industry in the Global Market" as part of its annual general meeting.
The Textile Commissioner said at the meeting that India was till recently the second largest producer and exporter of textiles globally. Now, it is in the fifth position. The industry should look at improving productivity and value addition. The government will provide policy-level support and has taken several initiatives to support the industry. The government and the industry should work jointly to generate investments, she said.
Ashwin Chandran, chairman of SIMA, said subsidy under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, amounting to more than ₹10,000 crore, is blocked due to various procedural issues. The association sought release of a major portion of the TUF subsidy against bank guarantee.
Though the Government has announced several relief measures to mitigate COVID-19 challenges, the debt restructuring facilities for non-MSMEs are available only when the accounts are standard as on March 1, 2020. This should be addressed. There is also an urgent need to announce a special package to boost cotton consumption by including all the cotton textile products under government support schemes for textiles, he said.
Agneshwar Sen, Head of Trade Policy at Ernst & Young and Chinmaya Goyal, Senior Manager, Tax and Economic Policy at Ernst & Young made a presentation on "Competitiveness of the Indian Textile Industry in the Global Market".
At the 61 st annual meeting, Ashwin Chandran, Chairman and Managing Director of Precot Meridien, was re-elected chairman of the association for 2020-2021. Ravi Sam, Managing Director of Adwaith Textiles, was re-elected as the Deputy Chairman and S.K. Sundararaman, Managing Director of Shiva Texyarn, the vice-chairman.