MITRA to help India reclaim global leadership in textiles: AEPC Chairman
19 October 2021: Welcoming the Cabinet’s approval for setting up seven Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (MITRA) Parks in the country, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) Chairman Dr. A. Sakthivel said that it will help India regain its global leadership position in the textile industry.
“We are extremely thankful to Hon’ble Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for taking a series of steps to promote the Indian textiles sector – PM MITRA Parks being the seventh in this series. It will attract massive foreign and domestic investment in the sector making it globally competitive while helping create lakhs of jobs.
“These steps will help India regain its dominant position in textiles. I am confident that the textiles sector will increase its annual exports to over $100 billion in the next few years. The sector, which is the second largest employment generator in the country, alone will play a major role in realizing Aatmanirbhar Bharat,” Dr. Sakthivel said.
The Chairman also thanked Finance Minister Smt Nirmala Sitharaman and appreciated the important role played by Hon’ble Minister of Commerce & Industry and Textiles Shri Piyush Goyal. The recent steps namely PLI, RoSCTL, RoDTEP, decision to clear all pending export incentive dues this year, removal of anti-dumping duty on key raw materials and fast tracking of FTA negotiations will greatly boost competitiveness of the domestic textiles industry and bring economies of scale, he said.
“India has been a dominant player in the cotton segment. We are taking great strides in the manmade fibre (MMF) segment and technical textiles, where two-thirds of the global apparel trade is. Both government and industry are working to promote production and exports from these segments. PM MITRA Parks will give this a major push.”
“The country has all the players from farm to fashion but has still been lagging behind in the global apparel trade due to certain factors that have now been addressed. MITRA Parks, which will bring together all players of the textile value chain in one place, will help reduce logistics cost and also cut down on the delivery time,” Dr. Sakthivel said.
The seven mega textile parks, which will be set up in the next three years, will create world class infrastructure with plug and play facilities to enable and create global champions in exports, the Chairman added.
