India is a very important market for the German textile machinery industry, with an export of more than €255 million (+8 per cent) in 2017. Many German machinery builders have longstanding relations with Indian customers and quite a number of them also provide production plants and training centres in India. Not surprisingly, about 370 decision-makers and experts from the textile and nonwoven related industry attended the VDMA conference and B2B event called “German Technology meets Indian Textiles and Nonwovens†in Mumbai recently.
According to a survey, both the event and German textile machinery engineering received the highest marks among the visitors. About 57 per cent of the visitors stated very good and 38 per cent good experience with machines and components from German suppliers. The performance and service promise as well as the high-quality standards have made German machine suppliers as most reliable partners in India and other countries. This positive result has by far not been reached by any other manufacturing nation from Europe or Asia.
Asked for future processes, investments in technical textiles and/or nonwoven production seem to be the most favorite sectors in India. Around 74 per cent of the visitors plan to expand their production capacities with new machines and components whereas 26 per cent intend to replace old machinery by new machines and components. High productivity, after-sales service, end-product quality, low operating and acquisition costs are the decisive machine procurement criteria in this order. The investments plans are based on a positive business and investment outlook in India. About 45 per cent of the visitors surveyed plan to invest more than 10 per cent within the next 12 months and 30 per cent up to 10 per cent. About 25 per cent of the visitors expect a sales increase by more than 10 per cent for the next 12 months and 60 per cent anticipate a sales growth of up to 10 per cent.
Considering this positive business climate and the high interest from the Indian industry, the 32 well-known VDMA members participated in the conference have good chances to offer the right technologies and to place new orders. The presented technology topics along the entire textile value chain will help the Indian industry to fulfill their expansion plans and to meet the challenges such as rising salary costs and shortage of labor in industrial regions. The major cutting-edge topics of the conference programme were as follows:
Constantly looking to the future has been a key characteristic of the VDMA for over 125 years. The VDMA was founded in November 1892 and is the most important voice for the mechanical engineering industry today. It represents the issues of the mechanical and plant engineering sector in Germany and Europe. It successfully accompanies its members in global markets. Its technical expertise, industry knowledge and straightforward positioning make it a recognised and valued point of contact for companies as well as the general public, science, administration and policy makers.
The roundabout 120 textile technology manufacturers organised within the VDMA Textile Machinery Association represent approximately 95 per cent of Germany’s total production volume in this field. The main activities of the Textile Machinery Association are economic and technical representation of the branch’s interests, exchange of experiences as well as services such as statistics, observation of significant markets and reporting on the situation in the textile industry throughout the world. In addition, the association supports the world’s largest international textile machinery exhibition ITMA (June 20–26, 2019, Barcelona, Spain, www.itma.com). Most of the companies are medium-sized. In 2017, the branch produced textile machinery and accessories worth around Euro 3.5 billion.