I personally disappointed to see we never given deserved focus to our textile sector, for me its a strategic sector as our neighbors (Pakistan, bangladesh, srilanka and even China) are too much depend on this one particular sector.
This sector is a labour intensive sector and has highest employment generation capability among other sectors and its importance increases considering the fact even growing at 7% we still not able to generate enough employment opportunities in our Country.
Its importance also increases unlike China BD or pakistan we have all local ingredients like Cotton, polyesters, yarns, dyes, organic and inorganic chemicals etc and machinery required available ingeniously which in itself get boost and help us more cost competitiveness.
Our farmers get more support and better prices if Raw material demand grows in our own country instead of exporting them cheaply to Pakistan, Bangladesh and China.
Above all itself have huge local demand of 1.3 billion peoples gives us economies of scale as well workers for this labor intensive sector.
India has enough capability and capacity to grow in this entire value chain from Raw material to RMG not just stop in primitive raw material supplier.
It is surprising now India itself is importing RMG even underwears from BD, South east Asia and China in huge quantities.
One of the issue with Textile sector in India is our labour wages which are double then BD and 30% higher then Pakistan but China who also has wages double then us is exporting of 270 billion $ worth of only Textile in 2015 which is 30% more then our current (2016) total exports.
China is excelling in this sector because of its ultra large setups and modern machinery (huge production with good quality products) with high labour productivity. It is possible due to there govt. support providing huge loans at low Interest rates for setting up modern manufacturing units. And also providing them good infrastructure with 24 hr cheap electricity supply which make them competitive in this sector.
India could also take lead from china and if our Govt. provides special focus on this sector like providing them low cost loans for setting up ultra modern units and electricity at reasonable cost (we already surplus in electricity) I see no reason we cant compete. We can also demand special tarrifs like BD, Pakistan and Sri lanka who are enjoying duty free access in developed world as "Least developed Nations" on back of our special relationship we enjoying with west with huge markets they are eyeing to enter in some negotiations. That would be win-win for both sides. (I personally believe instead of engaging with whole group of countries like in WTO, EU or RCEP we must engage individually with limited, specific, imp. countries and for specific sectors for win-win and meaningful deals. REASON ? Its many I will not going to discuss in this article.)
Our govt. should provide export incentives and tax credits, specific Textile export SEZs with focused Infrastructure at locations near to there raw materials to save transportation and time plus compliment and enhance growth of complete chain in this sector.
There is no reason we cant succeed in this sector like IT and Pharma. Even if it is a low margin and less complicated sector compare to IT and pharma it is equally imp. (even if we sale our products at cost but gain huge turnover it is still as beneficial as all other High technology and high margin sectors for us, I will explain it later in some other article ) due to its high turnover and revenue which will add to our GDP and push our growth rate even much higher
Lack of action and not giving special status to this sector where we have huge capability and opportunity is disappointing me the most.
*All the views are my own personal, like to have comments from our other members on this topic as well.
TOUGH GUY
This sector is a labour intensive sector and has highest employment generation capability among other sectors and its importance increases considering the fact even growing at 7% we still not able to generate enough employment opportunities in our Country.
Its importance also increases unlike China BD or pakistan we have all local ingredients like Cotton, polyesters, yarns, dyes, organic and inorganic chemicals etc and machinery required available ingeniously which in itself get boost and help us more cost competitiveness.
Our farmers get more support and better prices if Raw material demand grows in our own country instead of exporting them cheaply to Pakistan, Bangladesh and China.
Above all itself have huge local demand of 1.3 billion peoples gives us economies of scale as well workers for this labor intensive sector.
India has enough capability and capacity to grow in this entire value chain from Raw material to RMG not just stop in primitive raw material supplier.
It is surprising now India itself is importing RMG even underwears from BD, South east Asia and China in huge quantities.
One of the issue with Textile sector in India is our labour wages which are double then BD and 30% higher then Pakistan but China who also has wages double then us is exporting of 270 billion $ worth of only Textile in 2015 which is 30% more then our current (2016) total exports.
China is excelling in this sector because of its ultra large setups and modern machinery (huge production with good quality products) with high labour productivity. It is possible due to there govt. support providing huge loans at low Interest rates for setting up modern manufacturing units. And also providing them good infrastructure with 24 hr cheap electricity supply which make them competitive in this sector.
India could also take lead from china and if our Govt. provides special focus on this sector like providing them low cost loans for setting up ultra modern units and electricity at reasonable cost (we already surplus in electricity) I see no reason we cant compete. We can also demand special tarrifs like BD, Pakistan and Sri lanka who are enjoying duty free access in developed world as "Least developed Nations" on back of our special relationship we enjoying with west with huge markets they are eyeing to enter in some negotiations. That would be win-win for both sides. (I personally believe instead of engaging with whole group of countries like in WTO, EU or RCEP we must engage individually with limited, specific, imp. countries and for specific sectors for win-win and meaningful deals. REASON ? Its many I will not going to discuss in this article.)
Our govt. should provide export incentives and tax credits, specific Textile export SEZs with focused Infrastructure at locations near to there raw materials to save transportation and time plus compliment and enhance growth of complete chain in this sector.
There is no reason we cant succeed in this sector like IT and Pharma. Even if it is a low margin and less complicated sector compare to IT and pharma it is equally imp. (even if we sale our products at cost but gain huge turnover it is still as beneficial as all other High technology and high margin sectors for us, I will explain it later in some other article ) due to its high turnover and revenue which will add to our GDP and push our growth rate even much higher
Lack of action and not giving special status to this sector where we have huge capability and opportunity is disappointing me the most.
*All the views are my own personal, like to have comments from our other members on this topic as well.
TOUGH GUY
