CEOs Conference focuses on textile industry sustainability

19 Sep '14

2 min read

The seventh CEOs Conference, organized by the Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) in Coimbatore this week, focused on sustainability of the textile industry.

In his welcome address at the Conference on the theme “A Road map to sustainability”, SIMA chairman T Rajkumar suggested that textile mills should make investments in value added process like weaving, processing, garmenting, made-ups and technical textiles, as the country has adequate spinning capacity.

He said the Government of China’s policy of supplying cotton at subsidized prices to its spinners from its reserves was one of the reasons for the downfall in international cotton prices, which is also impacting Indian yarn market. He advised mills to avoid panic selling as cotton yarn export registration has already reached 130 million kg during August 2014, as against 72 million kg and 83 million kg for June and July 2014, respectively.

In his capacity as Chief Guest at the Conference, Mr. KV Srinivasan, vice chairman of Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) and South India Textile Research Association (SITRA), said the UK had to close down all its textile manufacturing activities due to high cost of production, while the US could sustain and revive its textile manufacturing activities taking advantage of home grown cotton and timely modernization of the spinning units.

He stated that raw material, power and skilled manpower are the major factors of sustaining textile manufacturing activities. He advised Indian spinners to concentrate on efficiency, value addition, energy conservation, automation, technology upgradation, skill development, productivity improvement, etc. on a continuous basis to sustain their global competitiveness and growth rate.

In his special address, Mr. Matt Earlam of Plexus Cotton Limited, stated that there was no growth in cotton consumption worldwide during the last 10 years while there was significant growth in polyester consumption. He felt that there was an urgent need to increase cotton consumption and its products.

He informed that China has planned to reduce cotton production, limit its imports, and increase the consumption to reduce the ending stocks. He felt that uncertainty might prevail till stability comes in Chinese cotton production and consumption pattern. (RKS)

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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