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Garmenting growth

Even as the International Textile Manufacturers Federation at its recent annual conference has recognised garment as the fastest growing commodity among all the manufactured items, the exports of the same from the country have shown a declining trend of late. For the month of October 2003, the apparel exports to quota countries dipped 16.42 per cent at $ 257.1 million as compared to the corresponding month last year. Moreover, it is an obvious fact that garment will drive the future growth in textiles even if India is fast emerging as a global hub for outsourcing by major brands. But this opportunity can only be availed if we move with a well chalked out strategy. The textile minister has recently said that the government was setting up a high-power committee in order to chalk out future strategies for various sectors in the industry. There is certainly need to set up such a body, particularly in a sector like garment which calls for an immediate attention as the future industry growth will be garment driven. The committee will help in infusing more flexibility into the existing policy formulation mechanism through more than one way.

In fact, the pressure is expected to intensify further as the quotas are phased out in the next few months time. Apart from quality, pricing will also play a very important role in deciding the future course. There is need to chalk out a long term strategy which should ensure quality supply of inputs at reasonable cost as also conversion of the same into end products through deployment of accepted technologies. Our production base needs to tone up on reducing the lead time and other uncertainties affecting the schedules and should strive for productivity gains to grab a bigger share in export markets.The domestic production base continues to be far behind achieving economies of scale. Only if we are able to create adequate infrastructure facility backed by smooth governance in terms of policies, there could be possibility of larger investments in garmenting. In fact, to the advantage of countries like India, garmenting requires the least investment when compared to other links like spinning and weaving. Moreover, the segment is labour intensive. Towards this end, imparting training will also very crucial in impacting the overall production. Productivity of Indian labour has been lower as compared to its competitors. The government’s recent apparel park scheme has to be implemented at the earliest. The success of such parks will depend heavily on the joint venture efforts of the government and private participation. It is time when the project approval committee in the textile ministry expeditiously evaluates all the apparel park project proposals sent recently by various state governments and approve them based on their socio-economic feasibility. Since these projects have got a longer gestation time, any casual approach towards the approval will delay the whole process and may impact the end results considerably.