High investment in machinery & volume of production - key reasons for low investment in NW in India
Armed with an M.Text and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing Management, Mr GV Aras began his career at Textile Engineering Group - A.T.E. as Sales Engineer in 1981, in which, he has now risen to the current position of Director.
A.T.E. Group today is the biggest textile machinery supplier across the textile value chain in India with sales turnover of around Rs. 10 billion and represents world leaders in textile machinery most of them European like, Truetzschler, Oerlikon, Karl Mayer, Monforts, Fongs Group, Osthoff and Zimmer.
Mr Aras has traveled widely across the world and worked towards bringing in joint ventures with many of these leading European machinery manufacturers. He has also presented many technical papers at international forums.
He is a member of Institution of Engineers, member of the V.J.T.I Senate and technical advisory group, committee member of "Bureau of Standards" for textile machinery & accessories, committee member of "Indo-Vietnamese" Chamber of Commerce, and was managing committee member of the Textile Machinery Manufacturers Association (TMMA) for 3 years in the past.
What is the current market scenario of nonwovens machinery in India?
Most of the existing players in the nonwovens industry have been using second hand or Chinese plants. These technologies are somewhat older or inferior but still useful as most of the products manufactured are in the lower end of the value chain like spun bond products. The equipment from Europe has found way in some projects where the market focus was mainly on Europe and USA for the end products.
How do you see the Indian market as a major consumer/producer of nonwoven products? Where does the opportunity for a country like India lie?
We see major growth coming in from durable nonwovens, particularly for filtration, geo-synthetics and automotive. With likely Government initiative towards making use of nonwovens mandatory in infrastructure development, huge demand will be generated for geo-synthetics (for reinforcement, filtration, drainage purposes) in the coming years. Hygiene nonwovens (wipes, diapers, sanitary pads etc.) will certainly grow in the next few years due to likely increase in per capita income and increasing awareness.
What according to you are the missing links for India in this field? Any recommendations to policy makers for enhancing investment in this sector?
Although there has been lot of talks on technical textiles including nonwovens, not much investment has happened so far in spite of good opportunities. Some of the reasons for this are higher initial investment in the capital machinery, bigger volume of production from the plant making it challenging to secure markets. From Government side enough initiatives have been taken in the right direction which includes special concessions under TUF, budgetary allocation for use of geo-textiles in road construction in North-East area, stricter norms for air polluting industries forcing them to use proper filtration media.
Our recommendation is that Government should make use of technical textiles including non-wovens mandatory in the infrastructure development, which will not only increase the demand for geo-textile products but also will increase the life and quality of the roads etc.
How would you rate the Indian nonwovens industry vis-à-vis those in China and Taiwan in terms of investment, number of companies, products produced, etc?
The Indian nonwovens industry is much smaller in size compared to China and Taiwan. Perhaps we are at a stage where China was 10 years back. There are very few companies in India in this field who have a significant production volume, while there are many companies in the lower product range with smaller volume.
In China, almost all the technologies in nonwovens are covered in production and covering domestic as well as export market. Within China even per capita nonwovens consumption is much higher than in India. In India Needle punched and spun laid products are mainly produced while spun lace production is surely growing after 3 new projects come up in India in the last 5 years.
Rising costs led to a shift in textile and apparel production from Europe to countries like India in the past. Do you foresee the same type of scenario reoccurring in nonwovens in the near future and why?
I do not think that such a scenario is possible simply because India does not hold any advantage in this area as the plants are of high technology with higher production volumes and much lower labour requirement. Since the material produced is bulky, it makes it expensive for transportation out of the country and there is not enough demand in India to consume the production.
What is the outlook for nonwoven machinery in India for the next 2-3 years?
The pace of investment in new projects in the nonwovens field is quite slow so far. However, with more investment coming in infrastructure development as well as healthcare sector, certainly in the next few years more demand will be generated for plant and machinery.
Published on: 19/07/2012
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.
