News Flash

Technical Textiles has tremendous growth scope in India - SRF

11 Dec '08

4 min read

As the importance of Technical Textile is rising day by day, market opportunities are increasing and thus the usage of the same is growing rapidly.

Currently, approximately US $120 billion worth of Technical Textiles is consumed world over and in India it is just $6 billion.

In an attempt to increase the understanding of Technical Textiles and its prospects of growth in India Fibre2fashion.com contacted Mr Suresh Kannan, Vice President, SRF Limited.

He said, “We have always believed that Technical Textiles is going to be a rapidly growing space in India. The scope for growth is tremendous as our current per capita consumption in India is quite low at 0.3 Kg as against 7-10 Kg in the developed world. China has a per capita consumption of 1.7 Kg. Even among the overall textile industry, the share of Technical Textiles in India at 5 percent does not compare well with the corresponding figure of 30 percent as reported in the developed world.”

Though India has a significant presence in some segments of Technical Textiles such as Automotive and Industrial textiles, it is yet to make a presence in other segments of Technical Textiles.

Government has taken initiatives to promote Technical Textiles through fiscal support, research spending and inter-departmental co-ordination. This is expected to stimulate domestic consumption in the coming years.

Besides, going by the past trends as shown in the developed countries, one can anticipate higher per capita consumption of Technical Textiles as the Indian economy continues to grow despite current slowdown.

What is more heartening is that the growth is not dependant on the traditional segments of Technical Textiles alone - the automotive and the industrial textiles. The indications are that a major push in demand will come from coated fabrics for their applications in architecture fabric, display solutions and more and more covering solutions.

The other major segment that is expected to stimulate the demand will be medical textiles, as India is fast emerging as a centre for medical tourism.

Indian Government is rightly increasing the spending on infrastructure significantly and this is expected to result in the growth of geo-textiles applications in roads, airports, dams, sea erosion control and solid waste management systems.

Agrotech is another area which promises a huge growth for Technical Textiles. Indian agriculture practices are presently not sufficiently modern. But with increasing awareness of advantages such as productivity and quality improvement due of use of woven, coated and non-woven textiles in agriculture, high growth is anticipated in this segment.

While discussing the potential areas for the usage of Technical Textile, Mr Suresh Kannan told, “We have at a broad level indicated some growth potential in some segments of Technical Textiles in India. In our view, a company generally tries to leverage its current position to chart its growth strategy by way of reinforcing its synergy with the existing business and renewed focus on its core competencies.”

More SRF Limited News... More Textiles News - India...