The Centre is planning to start trend forecasting for the textile sector from this month. Also, it will be using commercial intelligence to identify what could be in style in near future, as the country is gearing up to influence global fashion trends, a top official confirmed.
Raghvendra Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, also said the ministry along with export promotion councils was firming up schemes for clothing and made-ups sectors which are WTO-compliant.
“This project has been sanctioned and will be set up around February 26, which basically means that all the commercial intelligence in this sector can be used for forecasting the trends in 6 months or a year. This will lead to a big change, which is the need of the hour,” he said.
“We are actually getting influenced by international trends. The kind of punch we have in the textiles sector, it is high time that we became influencers,” he added.
Singh pointed out that India was unable to compete in apparel exports because of zero duty access in countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam.
“In the past 1-2 months, we have managed with the help of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and Revenue (Department), and we are trying to take care of WTO-compliance, which is obviously an issue now. These things will obviously be added incentives for the exporters, which will allow them to compete with the EU and other countries also,” Singh added.
The Textiles Secretary also assured that there are more incentives in the pipeline for the industry under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme. At the same time, he said, an innovation and incubation centre is also being set up, which will incubate startups in the sector and handhold them to move forward.
He added a repository of various indigenous crafts will also be prepared.
On the technical textiles sector and speciality fibres, the Centre was thinking in terms of joint ventures with other countries, and for this one-on-one talks are on. The government will make more announcements within this month for the technical textiles sector, he declared.
Further, he said that the Remission of State Levies Scheme was being examined for changes and hinted towards a hike in rebates.
Source: https://in.apparelresources.com