The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has high hopes about the Trade and Economic Partnership Agreement (TEPA) between India and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) which comes into force on October 1, 2025, playing a significant role in expanding exports of Indian textile and apparel items in Europe.
“The TEPA can serve a much bigger purpose than just expand our exports of textile and apparel items to Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland, the four member states of the EFTA,” CITI Chairman Shri Ashwin Chandran said, while commenting on the implications of this trade deal for India’s textile and apparel sector.
“The TEPA will complement the gains which are likely to accrue for Indian businesses from the free trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union which is currently being negotiated,” Shri Chandran added. The India-EU FTA is likely to be concluded by the end of the year.
The CITI Chairman said the TEPA also fitted in nicely with the aim of India’s textile and apparel exporters to reduce their dependence on the United States. “The TEPA will come in most handy as part of our diversification strategy,” Shri Chandran pointed out.
The US is the single-largest market for India’s textile and apparel exports, contributing nearly 28% to the revenue of India’s textile and apparel exporters. India’s textile and apparel exports to the US in the financial year 2024-25 was nearly $11 billion. The imposition of a 50% US tariff on Indian goods effective August 27 has emerged as a major hurdle for India’s textile and apparel sector.
In 2023, trade between the EFTA States and India reached 5.54 billion euro, with exports from EFTA to India amounting to 2.33 billion euro. Major export categories include mechanical appliances, pharmaceutical products, and electrical machinery. On the import side, EFTA recorded 3.21-billion-euro worth of goods from India, driven primarily by organic chemicals, clothing accessories and machinery.
As per CITI’s analysis, India was the 7th largest supplier of textile and apparel items to Switzerland in 2024, accounting for 3.5% of Switzerland’s total textile and apparel imports from the world. During 2024, Switzerland imported textile and apparel products worth $367.63 million from India.
Category wise analysis shows that apparel was the largest imported textile and apparel commodity by Switzerland from India and accounted for about 85% of the total textile and apparel imports by Switzerland from India.
