Indian textiles and garments are in for a tough competition from Korean and Taiwanese exporters who are currently shifting their production base to African countries for cost advantages, Exim Bank Managing Director T C Venkat Subramanian said on Saturday.

Exporters from these countries were, of late, moving to African countries obviously to exploit the cost advantages arising out of the Africa Giving Opportunities Act passed by the United States, he told a seminar on "Trade and exports under the WTO regime" in Chennai.

He said the Act aimed at giving opportunities to the textile industry in the African continent to export mainly to the United States. The cheap labour available in those countries was also an additional incentive.

Taiwanese and Korean exporters had started exploiting this by setting up production units in Africa for indirectly exporting the goods to the US.

Subramanian called for innovative strategies to sustain growth of products exports from India ranging from textiles to agriculture in the post-WTO regime. Products exports were to the tune of $44 billion in 2001-02.

Subramanian also called for diversification and improvement in the agriculture sector which, he said, engaged at least 66 per cent of the Indian workforce.

He said India could very well achieve the medium-term export target of $80 billion by 2007 provided innovative strategies were adopted.

The seminar was organised by Chennai-based magazine Industrial Economist.