The Bangladesh Textile Mills Corporation (BTMC) is looking at reopening six closed textile mills with Chinese help. The six textile mills owning a total of 153 acres of land are: Ahmed Bawani Textile Mills in Demra, Quaderia Textile Mills in Gazipur, Dinajpur Textiles Mills in Dinajpur, Dost Textiles Mills in Feni, Tangail Cotton Mills in Tangail and RR Textile Mills in Chittagong.

Yoga guru Ramdev-owned Patanjali Group is planning to venture into garments area and a ‘swadeshi’ jeans will be launched by end of the year or early next year. Baba Ramdev said the idea behind his expanding business ventures is to end the dominance of multinational corporations that have for decades been capitalising on the country’s market. There’s a great demand from the country’s youths for jeans, the reason why Patanjali has decided to launch “Indianised” jeans to compete with foreign brands, he said.

The Government of Andhra Pradesh has proposed to drastically slash power tariff to spinning mills in the State to uplift the textile industry. The spinning mills provide employment to four lakh people in the State, but several mills are on the verge of closure due to heavy losses.

A cabinet sub-committee headed by Finance Minister Yanamala Ramakrishnudu has formally moved a proposal to offer power at Rs 2 per unit to the spinning mills.

The Union Minister of Textiles Smriti Irani has asked the Textile Commissioner to get a detailed feedback on issues faced by powerloom sector, including yarn price fluctuation, anti-dumping duty on PTA and yarn and dumping of undervalued Chinese fabric and submit a report.

?In technical textiles, we are doing something, but not enough. There is a long journey, but we have not even started it. We have just only 2200 units in technical textiles in this whole big country. Even in the nine textile research associations, which have been entrusted with the tasks of Centres of Excellence, not much has been done. We need a lot more efforts,? the first few sentences from the Textile Commissioner, Dr Kavita Gupta.

In 2015-16, technical textiles market reached Rs 92,499 crore, of which the agro-textiles share is Rs 1,191 crore, which reflects only 1 per cent of the total. But for a country like India, which thrives on an agricultural economy, the scope is immense. ?We have not even touched the surface of the market, and we have to penetrate deep and explore the potential.

Can India take its share of 4.5% in global textile trade to 9-10% by 2020? An ITJ Exclusive explores the dreams and realities. India is No. 2 in the global textile trade, next only to China. But the country?s share is a measly 4.5 per cent against the 45 per cent of China?s. The Indian textile and apparel industry was estimated to be worth Rs 6,25,930 crore in 2015 and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 9 per cent to reach Rs 9,35,123 crore, by 2020.