Flexible Labor Laws, Innovations Can Help India Regain Lost Position on Global Textile, Clothing Market

As per Comtrade statistics, till 2017 India was first the world’s second largest exporter of textiles and apparel after China. However, since 2019, India’s rank dropped to 5th position with the country experiencing negative 1 % CAGR during the past five calendar years.

One of the known reasons for this is actually the largely fragmented nature of the Indian clothing market, and low-level, says Astute Consulting. According to their survey, India’s archaic labor laws prevents factory owners from laying off personnel during slack business period. The small size of factories also makes it difficult for owners to purchase technology and merchandise up gradations.

Another challenge the industry faces may be the lack of usage of global markets. Currently, India does not have preferential trade agreements with otherFlexible labor laws innovations might help India regain lost situation in global textile clothing countries, protecting against exporters from accessing key markets. Also, like other nations, India will not offer total garment bundle solutions to leading International makes and vendors. Its textile mills ship fabrics to other garment change countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam, that contain flexible labor laws and bigger manufacturing facilities.

To regain shed glory, India must introduce flexible labor laws and regulations besides encouraging entrepreneurs to create large scale units employing 30,000 to 50,000 workers under one roofing. This will boost productivity and reduce per unit price of manufacturing. It will also help the united states allocate higher investments in item development equipment.

India also needs to set up integrated vertical setups which range from fiber, yarn and fabric to garments at a single location. Fabric mills here must be either vertically built-into garment manufacturing set up or backward built-into fabric and yarn manufacturing. Even so, this requires huge capital investment.

The US and EU will be the largest markets for Indian textiles and clothes. Both countries have free trade and preferential trade agreements with India’s rivals, negatively impacting its exports.

Indian companies also face trade barriers unlike different countries just like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Pakistan who advantage with a 10 % discount on landed selling price of products because of GSP+ status with EU. Just lately, even Vietnam and Korea have entered into FTAs with the EU to improve market access. Therefore, India must expedite an FTA with the Union. This will not only benefit its outfits, made-ups and textile industry but also neutralize a number of the price disadvantages that it faces today.

Another significant initiative Indian companies need to undertake is motivate their product development groups to make ground breaking products that also meet sustainability standards

Companies also need to set up manufacturing facilities equipped with latest state-of-art sampling equipment. This can help them manufacture products in more compact batches, reducing their turnaround times. They need to make use of eco-friendly processing and finishing technology both for materials and the garment cleaning. Their processes need to be re-engineered to save lots of energy consumption, increase normal water recycling and improve effluent treatment. Also, they have to adopt new operations to use recycled recycleables, extracted from pre-and post-consumer wastes, like Polyester and Cotton.

India already has a vibrant domestic industry and abundant work force. Now, it only must address the above mentioned issues to regain its situation in the global textile and attire market.