Mobiltech & Protech hold high potential: Dr. N Saraf of Sarex

For over 60 years, Sarex Chemicals has been one of the leading textile chemical manufacturing companies. Sarex exports its products to continents like North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Sarex is India’s largest exporter of textile chemicals, and the Government has recognised Sarex with a two star export house status.

Dr. Naresh M Saraf, Executive Director of Sarex Chemicals, speaks on the recent products offered by the company, and their salient features.

What are the recent products and technologies that your company offers to the industry? What are their salient features?

We offer wide range of products from pre-treatment, dyeing printing, finishing and value-added finishes. Sarex focuses more on providing solutions rather products to the industry. Our products are based on latest technologies and are free of any restricted substances, and many of our products are also compliant to the latest certifications like bluesign, ZDHC, Oeko-Tex, GOTS, etc. We offer products like oil water repellents, fluorine-free water repellents, flame retardants, chlorine fastness improvers, moisture management chemicals, water-based pu coating agents, wet rubbing fastness improvers, tear strength improvers, products for polyamide, and many energy-saving products for pretreatment of textiles.

In India, technical textiles, know how or end-products, have been experiencing slow growth. How has been the market response to your company?

Overall the technical textile market in India is on the rise as lot of enquiries and requirement are being generated and received by our company on a daily basis. Fortunately, we are doing well in this. Slowly but surely, we are growing in the technical textile market. The only reason for this is our ability to understand the requirements of our customers and provide timely solutions to them.

If your company has been in export, give us a glimpse of the export achievements?

We are a government recognised two star export house and are exporting to more than 40 countries. We have also received “Certificate of Merit” by the Council under the category of Panel-II basic inorganic and organic chemicals including agro chemicals (SSM) for the outstanding performance of the year 2017-2018.

What are the challenges faced in the industry you are in? What are your strategies to overcome them?

The biggest challenge faced by any textile chemical manufacturing company is to the follow the environmental regulations, and to provide products at a lower cost without using any restricted substances. This is followed by the stiff competition faced by the manufacturers locally and from foreign suppliers.

How do you think is R&D important for technical textiles sector in the current scenario? What is your company’s contribution in this?

As technical textile is more about performance than aesthetic, R&D plays a very important role in this industry. Being a doctorate in textiles myself, I encourage in constant R&D in my organisation so that we can focus on providing solutions to the industries where they can increase their output, reduce the wastage, save energy and time. We have a dedicated team of technical team, which is well qualified to cope up with the exiting need of industry.

Sarex has developed many products, where we can save time and energy in pretreatment of textiles. We have developed a fluorine-free water repellent based on sustainable raw materials and many more.

What investments have you planned for in the next five years? How do you look at the future of your products/company in the next few years?

We regularly invest some of our profits for expansion of our manufacturing facilities and also in the R&D so that we are well versed with the latest developments.

Tell us which segments in technical textiles hold higher potential, both in the domestic as well as export markets? What are your reasons?

According to me, mobiltech and protech are two major segments, which will hold very high potential in both domestic as well as export markets. If you take an example of a car or an aeroplane, you will find that 70 per cent of the material used is textile, which requires various finishes. In protech, if you see today, average personnel with uniform wear’s multilayered clothing, which is finished with different chemicals.