India needs to focus on apparel manufacturing and diversification of products in the textiles sector, an official of leading textile firm Arvind Ltd said recently. The government also needs to incentivise apparel manufacturing by way of extending the PLI scheme which has been given to some other sectors, the company’s Executive Director Kulin Lalbhai said.
Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes for 13 key sectors are designed to create national manufacturing champions and generate employment opportunities for the country’s youth.
Speaking virtually at a session organised by MCCI here, Lalbhai said, “India is good at making fabrics but not in apparel manufacturing. The country needs to focus on apparel manufacturing to move up in the value chain for which it has to be incentivised,” he said. India has a thriving textiles sector where the domestic market size is $100 bn and growing at a rate of eight per cent annually, he said.
“This gives a good opportunity for the textile companies. There is also a need to diversify from cotton textiles to man-made fibres (MMF) which the world is moving towards,” Lalbhai said.
The domestic market needs to grow as it provides an “exciting route for the textiles sector”, the company official said.
To a query, Lalbhai said, “I do not see any Indian brand becoming a global ‘aspirational’ brand in the near future. The aspirational brands have emanated from developed economies. The most important thing is that Indian brands have to be relevant domestically.”
