Productive sectors will be shielded from strong Re: PM

New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, assured textile industry and exporters that the Government would take all possible measures to ensure that the real productive portion of the economy was not hurt by the appreciation of the rupee.

Delivering the valedictory address on the final day of the Texsummit 2007 here on Saturday, the Prime Minister told industry that while sops and subsidies would work if currency appreciation was a transient phenomenon, industry must adjust itself in the long run to the new dynamic. He urged industry to invest in operations which had the scale and scope to generate desired efficiencies and augment productivity. “You will have to engage in ruthless cost-cutting so that you are competitive,” the Prime Minister told the captains of Indian textile industry in categorical terms.

Dr Singh said he would ask the Ministries of Textiles, Commerce, Finance and the National Competitiveness Council to sit together to sort out the problems plaguing the textile sector as “the textile industry could be the vehicle for nationwide industrial modernisation and revitalisation of traditional skills and designs”.

Post-quota regime

Listing out various measures undertaken by the Government such as integrated textile parks, reform of the domestic taxation systems, excise exemption to the entire value chain and expansion of the technology upgradation fund scheme (TUFs), Dr Singh said the Ministry of Textiles was working on a scheme for training one million persons in five years on specific textile-related trade. He said the National Skill Development Mission, which is being launched, would also supplement the availability of skilled manpower needed by industry to compete globally in the post-quota textile regime.

Stating that given the country’s traditional strengths in the textile sector, India could emerge as a major manufacturing hub for the global market, Dr Singh said this could be achieved through a focused strategy for market expansion. He asked the export promotion councils and the Ministry to facilitate improved market access and greater value realisation for Indian textile goods in overseas markets.

He said industry must look far into the future and invest more for the coming two decades, not for the next season, and asked textile industry to emulate its counterparts in automobile, steel and pharmaceuticals by showing aggression and enterprise. He said textile industry must “graduate from being low-cost, low-value suppliers to high-volume, high-value suppliers by developing internationally known brands and labels”.