Mr R L Toshniwal, chairman and managing director, Banswara Syntex,

‘Govt policies will hamper exports’

In case of cotton textiles, the share will go up, but in synthetics, this will not happen, given the current government policies. The drastic reduction in DEPB rates will specially hit hard the synthetic textile exports. The specific rates of import duty have not been reduced, while the cut in DEPB rates is as high as 45 per cent. This will certainly affect the performance of this sector. In fact, investments to the tune of Rs 1,000 crore are in the pipeline, and some of this may not come in due to this policy. Moreover, this DEPB rate cut comes at a time when the raw material prices are high, further affecting profitability of the units. As against this, in cotton, there has been a good crop this year, which will ease price pressure on the raw material front. The cotton sector has the CENVAT option, resulting in cost reductions, which is not available to the synthetics sector. The government has brought about the changes at a time when the industry is struggling to remain competitive. As it is, India’s strengths are getting fast eroded by its competitors, large orders are invariably going to China, the smaller orders will come to us, but in this category too, India faces stiff competition. Good business strategies and creativity will alone help India to increase its share in the US market.

Mr Anish Doshi, director, Textrade International

‘Shares can improve in value-added segments’

Yes, India’s share in the US market, post-2004 will definitely go up. The industry has already begun moving into the value-added segments, realising that the market for commodities will get even more saturated in the years to come. China is not an innovator, depending entirely on its buyers for the design inputs, and simply executes the orders in bulk quantities. As against this, India has moved into designing, development and improving its deliveries. The competition, as I see, is coming from Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, etc, which can offer good qualities, but the prices are higher than what India can offer. However, the shares can improve only in the value-added segments. In fabrics, our share to the US will certainly not go up, this trend is already evident, exports are either stagnating, or recording very meagre increases. It is yarn, apparel and made-ups that will push export growth. In apparel, the market is more saturated, competition is quite stiff. But in made-ups and more importantly, home textiles, India has already notched a sizeable share of the US market, at around 11 per cent, against China’s share of around 14 per cent.