Textile technology show at Coimbatore

Coimbatore, the textile power house of Tamil Nadu is all set to witness an comprehensive textile technology exposition of international standard for the first time. International Textile Technology and Machinery Expo (ITGME 2006) will be organised during March 3-6, 2006 by Hi-Tech International Trade Fair (HITF), a well known player in organising trade fairs and exhibitions in this part of the country.

In India, there is lopsided development as trade fairs are metro-centric and the reed of the hour is to bring the technology to places like Coimbatore, which houses large number of textile and clothing industries. Even as Coimbatore plays host to few textile related fairs, hitherto there is no comprehensive exposition to offer technology for the entire gamut of textile industry. ITGME will focus on bringing the much needed technical support to meet the on-going modernisation and future expansion in the textile industry, said Mr Mr M A Rayappan, chairman of HITF, which also organises the knitting technology fair, Knit Tech at Tirupur every alternative year. Besides giving a fillip to the textile industry, the event will serve as a platform for exchange of technology between domestic and international textile machinery manufacturers, he said.

The exposition will be conducted in a completely air-conditioned environment spawning an area of 3 lakh sq.ft. Over 500 participants, including 200 from countries like China, Korea, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, Turkey are expected to exhibit their products and services. The show will have 750 stalls in six categories and also country pavilions for nations like China, Taiwan, Korea and Germany. ITPO has approved the fair which entails central excise waiver to domestic manufacturers and custom duty benefit for international participants for moving machines to the fair venue. Organisers expect the expo to generate business deals worth over Rs 1000 crore.

The fair will showcase many first of its kind cutting edge technologies and products pertaining to all the sectors of the textile industry like cotton ginning, simplex, weaving, yarn and fabric processing, finishing, printing, testing equipments, sizing, sewing, value added machines for embroidery, fusing, laser machines, labeling machines, steam ironing and software for textile, garment and fashion designing. Around 30,000 business visitors and 60,000 general visitors are expected to witness the expo. Nearly 50% of the business visitors will be from the adjoining textile belt of Coimbatore and 30% from other regions like Bangalore, Surat, Ludhiana, Ahmedabad, Delhi and Mumbai and the remaining from countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Malaysia etc. HITF has opened an office in Hong Kong to promote the fair in regions covering China, Taiwan, etc. It also has an understanding with the Korea Trade Centre (Kotra), whereby Kotra will promote the fair in Korea and HITF will in-turn arrange participants and visitors to Kortex, a textile fair slated to be held during July 2006 in Daegu, Korea. Starting from 2006, ITGME will be conducted every alternative year and the HITF has been lined for the next ten years, informed Mr Rayappan.