Exporters looking to tap growing synthetic garments market

Garment exporters, whose business is currently dominated by cotton garments, are in the process of tapping synthetic and blended garment segments in a big way as they constitute about 70 per cent of the global demand, the Tirupur Exporters' Association (TEA) has said.
Tirupur, which exported garments worth Rs 18,500 crore last year, has a share of Rs 2,500 crore to Rs 3,000 crore in synthetic and blended garments, mainly winter garments, TEA president, A Shaktivel told PTI.
Despite continuing growth and demand for garments from this town, no extra effort has been made to increase the share of garments made from man-made fibre, like synthetic-fibre clothes, Shaktivel said.

Through Knitwear Technology Mission (KTM), which commenced its operations in Tirupur, it would be easy to produce garments using synthetic fabric, which hitherto was manufactured after imports from China, he said.
The frequent fluctuation on higher side in cotton yarn prices has also put the knitwear segment in problem, bringing down profits, and Shaktivel said that the man-made fibre, the prices of which are steady, would help tide over that crisis.
Claiming that exporters in Tirupur are seeing an opportunity in synthetic garments as labour costs are rising in China, which dominates the global synthetic garment business, Shaktivel said that although China was cheaper than India, the price difference was narrowing down.

Tirupur can get business throughout the year with the synthetic garments and exporters were catering to the demand for spring and summer garments in the European and American markets, which accounted for about 48 and 25 per cent, respectively, he said.

Another major market emerging was for fluorescent jackets which are used by police personnel at night-time, which was estimated to be at USD 4 billion across the world. The medical textile and sportswear segment is also growing, he said.
On investments, he said that while the circular knitting machine used for making cotton fabric costs between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 30 lakh, the average cost of a machine that produces synthetic fabric is around Rs 3 crore.

Processing is another major challenge as it requires high- pressure dyeing machines, he added.