IMPRESSIONS from a Cross-section

Batik print fabrics market, though has many regular players in the sector, currently seems to be having a limited scope as it falls into specialty market which is small and has very small scale manufacturing due to ‘unexperimentedly’ bounded application areas.  Major players are Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. However, since two years, Indian competitiveness has increased in the sector, and we have been able to produce a result similar to Indonesia.  So that is why Bumaco's products are gaining acceptance.

Like I said, it is a very limited market and still it is mainly concentrated in Asia – Far East Asia, Middle East Asia, South East Asia and parts of Africa, a small amount may be going for garments to Europe and USA.

Annually, it is growing because Batik is now manufactured in polyester also as cotton is getting expensive these days. For imitation Batik, polyester consumption has grown in India; we have a huge volume for imitation Batik made of polyester. So cotton is around 20% and polyester is used to 80% now. All over India there are some 10-15 players who are making this kind of fabrics, and the annual volume could be around 2 million metre per month and around 20-25 million metre per year. So, talking in terms of monetary size of the market, this comes to be around USD 20-30 million.

Some areas I see as concern are;

-Still the quality of Batik in cotton is not as per the expectations of the buyers because the machinery required for that is still lacking in India. Only two Indian players are able to make at par with Indonesian quality.

-The mentality of the manufacturers here is also one of the barriers in the sense that though they have got required set of machinery, they are not interested or inclined to get into integrated forms of batik designs, unlike those overseas.

Indian manufacturers are contended with simple print. So, enterprising spirit is required to go for Innovations, Research and Development, and thereby to increase the scope for the product’s value addition and widen applications. It has to go beyond conventional use in garment, to home textiles as table ware, kitchen ware, curtains etc. If its use is extended, naturally it will grow. It definitely has the potential to grow.

*******