At the recently held AGM of the Federation of Hosiery Manufacturers of India (FOHMA) in Kolkata, Mr. K B Agarwala, Managing Director of Rupa & Co. was re-appointed as its President. Additionally, the Vice Presidents of five regions: Mr. A C Eswaran (South), Mr. Raj Kumar Jain (Central), Mr. Sunil J Pathare (West), Mr. Vinod Gupta (North) and Mr. Sanjay Jain (East) – their five Joint (Zonal) Secretaries along with Mr. B. D. Kothari, Hony. Secretary & Mr. Sharad Bhatter, Hony Treasurer were also elected at this AGM. The Chief Guest of this function was Alapan Bandyopadhyay, Additional Chief Secretary, MSME & Textiles, Government of West Bengal.
Following his appointment, Agarwala spoke about the aggressive plans of FOHMA to scale up its activities and embark on new initiatives going forward. He mentioned that plans are afloat to organize KNITCON 2019 in the 1st week of May 2019. This would be the 3rd edition of KNITCON, which was a very successful conference on the technological advancements in the Indian hosiery sector. He added that apart from organizing other programs, seminars & workshops – efforts were being made to send to ITMA 2019 (Barcelona, Spain) under the aegis of FOHMA.
Agarwala further pointed out that the Indian hosiery industry had vast potential for growth and advancement, which could be accomplished by using proper and advanced technologies. With the changing market dynamics, the opportunity for Indian players to explore the export markets have increased considerably.
Among the other things, he pointed out:
a) The domestic market for apparel & lifestyle products currently estimated at 85 billion US Dollar was expected to reach 160 billion US Dollar by 2025. Additionally, the Indian Textiles sector of which hosiery is an integral part contributed to around 13 per cent of total exports and employed around 105 million people directly & indirectly – thus fuelling a significant part of the Indian economy.
b) The proposed hike in FDI limit for multi-brand retail will bring in more players, thereby providing more options to consumers. With global retail brands assured of a domestic foothold, outsourcing will also rise significantly. All of the above would help the organized apparel segment to grow at a CAGR of more than 13 per cent over a 10-year period.
c) The new National Textile Policy aims to allow foreign investments, thereby creating employment opportunities for a large number of people.
d) The doubling of import duty on 328 textile items to 20 per cent would help domestic players to marginalize their losses, which had increased owing to the influx of imported products – post-GST.
e) Promoting manufacturing of specific hosiery products in our country (by limiting imports) will help in furthering the “Make in India” initiative.
f) The Apparel sector showed a dip of 4 per cent in exports from 17.4 billion US Dollar in 2016-17 to 16.7 billion US Dollar in 2017-18. Given this scenario, India’s export policy needs to be revisited for eliminating the existing gaps and irregularities. The Government should provide a roadmap for robust growth in merchandise exports.
g) The earmarking of Rs. 690 crores by the Union Ministry of Textiles for setting up 21 Ready-made Garment manufacturing units in 7 states will help in developing & modernizing the Apparels sector.
– Apparel and Textile News, Apparel Talk, Indian Apparel
