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'Big Opportunity beckons India's fashion industry'

Textiles Secretary Shymal Ghosh today urged designers, industry, funding agencies like banks and institutions and the infotech industry to give a critical push to the fashion industry.

Inaugurating a seminar on ''Indian Fashion Industry: A Vision for the New Millennium'', organised in New Delhi jointly by the National Institute of Fashion Technology and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, he underscored India's potential for accelerating the export of garments and other related goods.

But India lags behind China. Chinese exports of garments amounted to $ 30 billion while India's exports were only $ 4.6 billion, However, Indian exports are growing at 7.5 per cent annually, he said.

Ghosh said India has the potential to become a major fashion garment exporting country. Its primary strength lies in the availability of raw materials. Yet there are certain disadvantages that inhibit growth, such as low wage productivity, high cost of capital, inadequate retailing network and poor brand image.

The seminar was attended designers, garment exporters and manufacturers, government officials, the NIFT faculty and representatives of the big business houses. They sought industry status for the fashion sector.

Ghosh said the emergence of information technology and fast communication channels have helped the fashion industry to go global. He underlined the need for greater synergy among the textile mills and the designers.

L V Saptharishi, executive director of the NIFT, called for a plan of action for linking fashion segment with the textile industry. The interface with the FICCI, he said, is aimed at fostering a constructive dialogue which can fructify into growing business propositions later.

He said there should be value addition in the fashion segment so as to enhance export realisation.

In a discussion, panelists such as Rohit Bal and Tarun Tahiliani said that the Indian industry should look more towards the domestic designers which will enable them to source designs at lesser cost.

They said the non-acceptability of foreign brands in India had led to closing down of the operations of the reputable international supply chains.

It was pointed out that the fashion industry, including the designers, has to develop a strong supply side. For this, they should develop strong financial muscle. Credit sources need not necessarily be banks and financial institutions. There are some venture capitalists who want to fund the fashion industry.

The panelists also referred to the impending challenges for marketing Indian garments. Some of the tiny countries now have started focussing on garment sector and providing goods at a lesser cost in comparison to India. To compete successfully in the fiercely competitive world market, it is necessary to modernise and upgrade the skills in a consistent manner, the panelists observed.

Non-tariff barriers like imposition of ban on environmental consideration and violation of human rights have to be addressed.

The distinguished panelists for various sessions incuded Ritu Beri, Ravi Bajaj, Ashish Soni, Suneet Verma, Rina Dhaka, Manju Grover and Badal Chaudhry.

The FICCI president Sudhir Jalan said that India has to lay focus on ready-to-wear brands. With the phasing out of multi-fibre agreement and the quota system, there would be a spurt in demand for garments abroad.

With the low priority accorded to research and development coupled with non-availability of institutional finance, the garment sector was not in possession to gear up to face the emerging challenges.

He wanted a scientific approach by the players in the fashion segment including industry, designers and institutions like the NIFT, to jointly work out a future agenda keeping in mind the expanding export and domestic market.

The FICCI secretary-general, Amit Mitra, said that the NIFT and the FICCI would organise a mega conference on ''Technology Upgradation and Rejuvenation of Fashion Industry'' in the near future which would be a rallying point for experts, designers and industry to discuss the development needs of fashion industry.

UNI

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