Govt raises bar on textile exports

New Delhi: Buoyed up by higher investments, production and exports in the post-quota regime reflecting the resurgent mood of the Indian textile industry, the Government has raised the bar on export target for textiles and clothing to $115 billion by the terminal year of the Eleventh Plan (2011-12).

Interacting with media persons on the editors' conference here, organised by the Press Information Bureau (PIB), the Union Textile Minister, Mr Shankersinh Vaghela, cited upsurge of investments in textile sector. Such investments in the textile sector during the last two years have been witnessing a secular increase, he said adding that investments in 2006 were estimated at $6 billion.

He said the industry was aiming at investments of the order of $31 billion (i.e., Rs 1,40,000 crore) by 2010 so as to double India's share of global trade in textiles and clothing.

On exports, he said, after the abolition of the quota regime governing global trade in textiles and clothing in December 2004, textile exports logged a robust 22 per cent growth in 2005-06 to touch a new peak of $17 billion.

He said that both readymade garments and home textile articles were the major products, which represent the highest end of textile value chain.

He said that in the second year of the quota-free regime, textile exports to the US, the biggest market for India, reached a level of $3,871 million during January-August 2006.

Figures available with the European Union (EU) show that India had recorded a growth rate of 18 per cent in 2005 and 24 per cent in January-April 2006.

He said the Government was committed to providing the textile industry with adequate infrastructure facilities and the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks announced after merger of two existing schemes had been widely received by the industry. As many as 26 integrated parks have been sanctioned with a project cost of Rs 2,430 crore involving investments of more than Rs 2,400 crore and additional employment generation of more than five lakh persons. He said the Government was providing a grant of Rs 866 crore for the sanctioned project.

To a question about the partial spatial distribution of textile parks, the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Mr Sudipto Roy, said that in the second phase of sanction, 'We are looking at spatial distribution to clear projects from States like Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.'

Mr Vaghela said the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme for modernisation of textile mills has been extended till 2007 and total investment from this scheme from April 1999 to July 2006 has been Rs 44,686 crore.