Prabhu Damodaran
Secretary Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF)
India needs to focus on FTAs
India's largest textile entrepreneurs association from Tamil Nadu, the Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF) was founded some three years back by like-minded textile entrepreneurs with a combined annual turnover of over ?40,000 crore. ITF is India's fastest growing textile entrepreneurs association representing the entire textile manufacturing value chain from this southern state. It aspires to establish the Indian textiles industry in the global arena and gain world class status. ITF secretary Prabhu Damodaran talks to Fibre2Fashion on a host of issues that plague the textile industry.
The new textiles policy is very much on the anvil as announced a couple of weeks back. What were your suggestions as a key stakeholder?
We suggested: (a) Fibre-neutral policy; (b) Support plans to make value-added textile products in the value chain; (c) Plans to increase cotton yield to 1,000 kg per hectare for fibre security.
Technologies and machinery that help reduce the carbon footprint substantially come at a price. Is it not possible for ITF to rally around its big and small players to buy in bigger numbers, and therefore bargain for a lower price with the vendor? Any thoughts?
We are already doing it. We negotiated for our members for many energymeasuring and saving equipment and LED bulbs in bulk and saved ?200 crore on energy saving alone apart from the savings in capital cost. For example, we converted 2.5 lakh LED bulbs in all our factories and derived ?60 crore of annual savings. Due to bulk purchase of the bulbs, we got them for 30 per cent less than the retail price. Plus, online energy management system which was a luxury in the past has been installed by more than 70 companies as we could negotiate at very affordable prices.
How is the new GST tax regime expected to affect the textiles industry in general and also with reference to some textile hubs like Tamil Nadu?
GST is a historic reform and a muchneeded one for the textiles sector. From day one we have been insisting on zero exemption across the value chain. We are thankful to the textiles ministry and the finance ministry and GST council for the lowest rate along with zero exemption. This will help cotton-dominant TN textiles industry to improve efficiency, and the cost will also come down.
Industry believes that a big window of opportunity has once again come India's way. What steps is the ITF taking to ensure that opportunities frittered away in the post-Quota phase are not lost out on again?
Market diversification is the key, apart from moving up the value chain in the strong markets. The India Eurasia free trade agreement (FTA) may open up big opportunity for apparels and textiles. It is a ₹70,000 crore market wherein India's share may be in the range of a measly 1 per cent. India needs to tap many new markets for growth. But over and above, the world's fastest growing consumption market is at home, in India itself. ITF strongly believes in India's consumption story and all companies should try to focus here and build regional brands to use the growing opportunity.
It would be great if ITF could rally all the state governments and work out a textiles policy in sync with the Union policy, keeping in mind the unique requirements of each state. Your thoughts on this, and an action plan if you could suggest to take this forward.
Last week, we had an exclusive meeting with the Tamil Nadu government that was attended by all textile associations; we apprised the TN textiles ministry about the urgent need for a new textile policy. We suggested one important aspect and that was that the policy should support existing infrastructure in textile manufacturing sector by way of state technology upgradation fund apart from attracting new investments.
What can be done to increase the volume of textiles exported from India?
India needs to focus on the various FTAs, and stress on blended product exports using cotton and MMF.
How and when was the ITF formed and what was the mandate set? How far has the ITF been successful in achieving this mandate?
We are an association of 500 textile entrepreneurs with a single-point agenda: collaborative growth. We created many platforms for our entrepreneurs to share knowledge and work together to improve manufacturing efficiency, reduce costs and also upgrade to the next level in products and services. We have achieved many milestones in the last three years, including huge cost savings of around ?1,000 crore for our industry by way of various consortium purchases and also created knowledge platforms like market-specific yarn groups to share market intelligence, etc.
It is a volatile world we are living in. How is Brexit, Trump's call for 'Make in America' etc affecting exports?
It's natural for every economy to focus on manufacturing to provide employment. But the textiles sector may not be hit big time by Trump's policies, and China has a very big trade deficit compared to India with the US. So, the US may focus first on China and that will bring more opportunity for us.
What measures have been adopted by ITF to help budding textile entrepreneurs?
We used to have monthly interactions wherein new entrepreneurs could learn all aspects of business. We also used to analyse the balance sheets of more than 200 textiles companies and compare their EBITDA margins and other parameters to understand the success key points.
Published on: 24/07/2017
DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of Fibre2Fashion.com.
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