Study Calls For Consolidating, Restructuring Indian Textile Industry

Study Calls For Consolidating, Restructuring Indian Textile Industry
In a recently released study by the India-based Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the textile industry in India is urged to consolidate and restructure in order to remain competitive after textile import quotas are eliminated in 2005.The study, titled “Introspecting Competitiveness of the Textile Sector in Southern Region,”says if India were to increase its textile trade from today’s $11 billion (accounting for about 3 percent of the world’s textile trade) to $50 billion by 2010, informal business pools will have to be developed among industry clusters to consolidate capacity and maximize returns. According to the study, such consolidation will “enable a single reference point for an international customer and significantly contribute to profitability.”The study also says that decentralization has contributed to the spread of the textile industry in India. It recommends the decentralized sector specialize in niche products with shorter runs and smaller lot sizes, while the organized sector should focus on the opposite.Other suggestions to the industry offered by the study include shifting from being “product oriented”to being “service oriented;”improving the value chain by providing valueadded finished product brands instead of intermediary commodity products; controlling value loss to wastage and inadequate monitoring using supply chain and information system management tools.
Summer 2004