LRT focuses on innovations at ITME

Our new Electroclean tool (EC 3) comes with a long-life battery and offers high spindle speed, elaborates J M Balaji, Head Marketing, Lakshmi Ring Travellers (Coimbatore).

Lakshmi Ring Travellers (LRT), a dominate player in the ring travellers segment in India and globally, showcased innovative products at ITME. “We have made a lot of new developments in our existing products. For example, our finishers have undergone process change. We are also displaying new battery operated as well as manual application tools here. Our new Electroclean tool (EC 3) comes with a long-life battery and offers high spindle speed,” elaborated J M Balaji, Head Marketing, Lakshmi Ring Travellers (Coimbatore) Ltd. LRT has products for all segments of the market whether it is for natural or man-made fibres.

Speaking about the market demand, he said, “2021 was extremely good year for everybody in textile value chain. The market was upbeat till May 2022, but after June 2022 the demand has slowed down. As a result, capacity utilisation of all spinning mills (across the world) came down. Probably, this is a first time in the history of textile industry that the entire world has been affected. In the last month or so, the situation has started improving and we expect gradual improvement in demand over the next few months. India is better placed than others in spinning segment. Besides, Central American countries, where we are already a leading supplier, will witness higher growth in the next 4-5 years as they are closer to the US (where companies would like to source their products from nearer countries). All-in-all, there will be a definite improvement in the market in 2023 (as compared to 2022). But, how good will it be is very difficult to predict as there is uncertainty in the market.”

With respect to suggestions to the government on the eve of upcoming budget 2023, Balaji opined, “India should not export yarns, rather focus should be on exporting value-added products, like fabric, garments, etc. Today, we are exporting about 110 million tonnes of yarns. The government should incentivise post-spinning segments like weaving, knitting, garmenting, technical textiles, etc to encourage value addition in Indian textile industry.”