Foreign Buyers Line Up For Indian Knitwear On Cheap Prices

The Rs 40,000 crore knitwear industry in the country, which has been facing sluggish growth for the past five years, is poised for a boom as quicker delivery schedules and price competitiveness being offered by exporters in the hosiery town of Tiruppur are weaning away foreign buyers from China, Taiwan, Bangaldesh, Hong Kong and Pakistan.

The uncertainty in Hong Kong, non-meeting of delivery schedules by Pakistan, natural calamities in Bangladesh and delay in delivery schedules by China gave indications of a boost to Indias knitwear industry, which is poised to grow at the rate of 25 per cent in the next five years, according to A Sakthivel, president of Tiruppur Exporters Association.

 

Export deliveries in this knitwear Mecca took only 90 days to execute when compared to 180 days in China, he said.

Coupled with cheap labour and gradual mechanisation of the units, the industry was fully geared to snatch its share of the growing world market for knitwear, especially the trendy and fast growing T-shirt sector, he said.

The T-shirt industry is set to grow by leaps and bounds as the jeans has caught the imagination of the consumer worldwide, according to D G Reddy, director, Apparel Export Promotion Council, in-charge of knitwear in southern India.

Further, T-shirts were products in which fashion could be incorporated very easily, unlike woven fabric, and were still priced cheaper than other garments.

The three-day India Knit Fair 97, which concluded recently, had evoked tremendous interest among buyers for the first time ever. Over 100 buyers and an equal number of buying agents from Europe, US and other countries visited the fair, which will now be a permanent annual feature.

He said 1,000 automatic knitting machines and other sophisticated equipment at a total investment of about Rs 800 crore had been added to the units.

Shaktivel, also chairman of the India Knit Fair Association, said Tiruppur had come a long way from the single jersey T-shirt five years ago to the structural fabric that almost resembled woven texture now.

He said the days of setting up of small units were gone and only the fittest survived as buyers wanted to be sure of vertical operations.