The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) - Tamil Nadu along with Tiruppur Exporters' Association (TEA) jointly convened a press meet on Tuesday in Tiruppur to announce the 'Tamil Nadu - Taiwan Technical Textile Partnership Summit that will be held in Coimbatore next week.
It will bring together industry leaders, technical experts, policymakers and suppliers particularly from Taiwan to explore opportunities and drive innovation in MMF and technical textiles in Tamil Nadu.
The two-day event will feature high-level impact B2B meetings & product showcase besides a series of Technical Session on Textile Processing.
Kumar Duraiswamy, Joint Secretary, TEA while addressing the press and media, said that the Summit will be held at Le Meridien, Coimbatore on 21st of July whereas on 22nd, an exhibition of Ready-made Garments made from Man-Made Fibres will be showcased to the delegates in Tiruppur, besides which a discussion between the Taiwanese delegation and manufacturers & exporters will be held.
Speaking about the importance of this event, Mr.Duraisamy said that the world is looking to reduce its dependency on China for textiles, and they are looking for other countries. India is their first preference.
Post-Covid, Indian textile business is now seeing a bright opportunity and the trade climate is in India's favor. Recently India finalized a historic FTA with the UK. This move is poised to increase India's business with the UK by another 10-15%. In another 2 years, a similar agreement could be made with EU, works are going on for that. USA too has kept the tariffs low for India when compared with other countries. We may hear lot more good news in the first week of August.So the climate is favorable for India, Mr.Duraiswamy said.
For India to increase its textile exports, it cannot just rely on cotton alone. Our cotton production is getting low. We are behind in the production of winter-wear and sportswear.
TEA's founder president Mr.Sakthivel has been emphasizing for the last 6-7 years that all Tiruppur-based Textile companies should considering entering into MMF-based textile manufacturing, and out of their total production, 20% should be MMF.
Taiwan has invested lot in Tamil Nadu. They have made a huge investment in non-leather footwear in Dec.2024. iPhone manufacturer Foxconn is also from Taiwan, and that company too has made good invesments in the State. "We are expecting similar investments from Taiwan in TN Textiles," he said.
Taiwan is known for its excellent research in MMF garment manufacturing, and they are in a very strong position in the world today. If they begin business in Tamil Nadu and establish factories here, the trade opportunities will rise and that could be utilized well by us. Hence we are inviting the local textile exporters, manufacturers, dyeing, printing, knitting units owners to attend this summit and get benefitted.
G.R.Gopikumar, Convener, Textile Panel, CII -Tamil Nadu who spoke next said that Taiwan is very keen to have a business relationship with Tamil Nadu among other states in India.
This was visible when it made a good investment in footwear and electronics sectors in Tamil Nadu. So we thought why not we can have their expert guidance to make our textiles sector thrive. CII, TEA and the government are closely interacting with Taiwan in this regard, he said.
Gopikumar shared that Taiwan Textile Research Institute (TTRI) an entity funded by the industry and government has significantly helped the Taiwan Textile Industry by creating new and innovative products. Works are going on to forge alliance with TTRI that will benefit Tamil Nadu textile-scape.
Taiwan is the world's no.1 in Sportswear and outdoor fabrics. They have the largest market share and the world's buyers' major sourcing happens out of Taiwan, Indonesia, Cambodia.
India's garment exports stand at 15 billion USD. The govt aims to take textile exports to 100 billion USD. But to achieve that kind of figures, we need lot of guidance from experts in this sector like Taiwan. So during this 2-day event there will tons of technical presentation about the kinds of MMF processing infra (technology and machineries) that is needed here, Gopikumar said and welcomed the textile community to get benefitted through this summit.