India-ITME 2016: Bigger Bolder!

Come December 3, about 210 new exhibitors, making a total of 1,050, with many new launches are poised to woo over 1,50,000 visitors from India and other parts of Asia at the India-ITME 2016 in Mumbai. An ITJ Exclusive reveals a preview of the 6-day epoch-making event.

Bigger, Better, Bolder: India-ITME Society, organisers of the ITMEs, by their own words, has struck the keynote for the 10th India-ITME 2016 edition, which is poised to scale a new peak of achievement by the sheer number of exhibitors, visitors and the space. The biggest achievements are the new exhibitors and the number of roadshows India-ITME Society has done to promote ‘Make in India’ – a dream project of the Modi-led Government. There were a total of 23 roadshows, including in some important Asian countries like Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

The numbers are: 575 from India and 398 from abroad. A total of 77 exhibitors are from global media and industry associations. The India-ITME 2016, to be held from December 3 to 8 at the Bombay Exhibition & Convention Centre in Goregaon is expected to be spread over 1,50,000 m2, with participation from 92 countries and strength of about 1,050 exhibitors from across the globe in 17 chapters spanning the textile segment from raw material to finished products.

India-ITME 2016 is the focal event for the textile and textile engineering industry in India and in the neighbouring region. The size of India’s textile machinery industry is poised to double to Rs 45,000 crore in the next seven years from the present Rs 22,000 crore in light of new projects and emphasis on setting up textile parks. The textile machinery manufacturing section is one of the important segments of the machinery manufacturing industry in India. India International Textile Machinery Exhibition, the largest in its sector, takes place every four years. With 848 exhibitors from 32 countries and visitors from 61 countries, the 2012 event was a great success. The exhibit categories are from 17 chapters which cover all segments of textile engineering including accessories and related services. Machinery for spinning, technical textiles, weaving, embroidery, etc will be presented.

India-ITME event was conceptualised in 1979; its 1st event was executed in 1980 in Mumbai, India. Today, this event has become backbone of textile and textile engineering industry in India. India-ITME has grown leaps and bounds to be one of the largest in this sector internationally. The event promotes the textile industry by providing: access to modern technology from across the globe; interaction with agents/distributors; creating new business opportunity for joint ventures, investments and setting up new units.

India-ITME 2016 follows close on the heels of ITMA Asia at Shanghai towards the end of October. Only those Indian companies, say around 25, which are interested in the Chinese market, are exhibiting at ITMA Asia as against the usual 40 to 50 exhibitors in the previous ITMA ASIAs. Today Indian market is growing bigger and bigger for European and other foreign textile machinery.

Speaking on the differentiating factor of India-ITME 2016 from all the India-ITMEs of the recent past, Seema Srivastava, Executive Director, India-ITME Society, said, The 10th India-ITME event shall showcase 11 new product launches for spinning, eight for processing and six for weaving, totaling 25 new products for the business visitors to see first time. More than any international event held in the past. This event is supported by the Department of Heavy Industry, Textile Ministry, Government of India and INDEXTB, the Government of Gujarat as State Partner, making this the only privately organised exhibition supported by Central and State Government. India-ITME 2016 is also supported by 77 international industry associations, universities and media partners across the globe.”

She added, “A total of 210 new companies are participating this time of which 168 are Indian companies and 42 foreign companies. A new and exclusive hall for digital printing, testing and measuring equipment, dyestuff and chemicals showcasing exhibitors from Taiwan, Turkey, Italy, Switzerland, China and Austria is attracting much visitor enquiries. Turkey especially in spinning, weaving and chemical and dyes chapters are of high interest to the domestic and regional business visitors at India-ITME 2016.”

Sanjiv Lathia, Chairman, India-ITME Society, is very upbeat about the current edition?. During an India-ITME roadshow at Bhiwandi near Mumbai, he told the Editor of ITJ that the visitor number may even touch 200,000. He was confident that powerloom owners would visit the exhibition on a larger scale since the Government has given a fillip to modernisation. “Powerloom units may not buy Rs 80 lakh machinery, but there are machines available for Rs 8 lakh too which can help upgrade their facilities,” he said.

Global textile machinery market is witnessing tremendous growth buoyed by growing demand of textile and apparel market. The major manufacturers of textile machinery are Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and now China. One of the major trends in the global textile machinery market is the growing number of technological innovations.

Special focus is given to developing market in Asia, the Middle East & Africa. This event is supported by industry association, educational institutions and governing bodies in India as well as from countries which has textile industry as major economic activity. There has been a 3.3 per cent decline in textile exports in 2015-16 to $40 billion from $41.4 billion in the previous year due to India losing its competitive edge to Bangladesh and Vietnam. Textiles sector is among the largest contributors to India’s exports, with a share of almost 11 per cent. The US, European Union and parts of Asia are the main markets for Indian textile and apparel exports.

The Indian Government has identified new markets like Russia, South America and West Asia to boost exports. But if India wants to do better in textile exports, the industry has to upgrade to international standards. The Government had in June announced a Rs 6,000-crore package for textiles and apparels sector to help carve out a bigger share of the global market.

The Textiles Ministry, which has set a target of doubling textile exports in 10 years, plans to enter into bilateral agreements with Africa and Australia, along with working on a new textile policy to promote value addition.

Says R Rajendran, Chairman of Textile Machinery Manufacturers Association (TMMA): “Import of textile machinery has risen from Rs 8,858 crore during 2014-15 to Rs 10,305 crore during 2015-16. The upswing in the imports might be due to improper HS Code used by the importers. Besides, there are also imports of second hand shuttleless looms as well as low cost, low tech shuttleless loom from China in large numbers. The present nil import duty coupled with TUFS benefits actually helped the low tech Chinese manufacturers in a big way. Subsidy on second hand machinery, though discontinued in the present A-TUFS, free import of second hand machinery and low cost looms at subsidised rate created an unfavorable situation for the domestic manufacturers.”

According to Avinash Mayekar, MD & CEO, Suvin Advisors, “This industry is nearly 60 years old and has more than 1,000 machinery and component manufacturing units. Nearly 300 units produce complete machinery and the remaining produce various textile machinery components. However, not all the units work to full capacity or even the optimum capacity level. Except for the units in the spinning sector where the machinery are of international standards; in the other sectors, machinery manufacturing for weaving, knitting and wet-processing lack high level of quality standard and performance (in most of the cases) to compete with the European manufacturers.” “The industry witnessed a growth of 8-10 per cent to Rs 22,000 crore in 2014 from Rs 20,000 crore in 2013. The size of India’s textile machinery industry is poised to double to Rs 45,000 crore in the next seven years from the present Rs 22,000 crore in light of new projects and emphasis on setting up textile parks. The textile machinery manufacturing section is one of the important segments of the machinery manufacturing industry in India. Our in-house production is insufficient to meet domestic demand,” added Mayekar.

He added, “In the weaving sector, shuttleless weaving machinery (rapier or airjet) and in the knitting sector (circular knitting and flat knitting) machinery hardly have any presence in the industry. The machinery manufacturing operation takes place at the organised and the unorganised sectors. In the organised sector, in addition to the public limited companies, machinery manufacturing is done in independent units, which have collaborative joint ventures with the foreign entities. In the decentralised sector, there are small-scale industrial units as well as tiny units engaged in the production of accessories pertaining to the textile machinery.”

Says Mayekar: “Majority of the production comes from the States of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat; collectively contributing around 84 per cent of the production. Around 87 per cent of the total production, i.e., textile machinery is coming from the six clusters, namely Surat, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Ludhiana and Mumbai. These clusters are strategically located to serve the textile industry and have the affiliation to produce the kind of machinery required by the industry. Ahmedabad is a cluster of weaving. Currently most of textile machinery is consumed within the country, so there is very less scope for the export.”

Fadis is the only company in the world to offer a complete line of machines specifically studied for preparing yarn for the following dyeing processes, be it in form of bobbin, hank or FAPP™/Muff. It also offers all the machines to wind the dyed yarn. To choose the Fadis cycle (from start to end) represents a great advantage: Fadis becomes the reference partner who can advise and personalise the machines that best fit the customer’s needs. Fadis offers – with its Sincro Sprint spooling machine – a ‘traditional’ yarn covering system. This completely new concept of compact and efficient double-sided spooling machine is equipped with independent winding spindles with electronic yarn guide, precision crossing and motorised bobbin. Equipped with an ‘on-line’ tension control device, it was designed to reach high winding speeds and offers various advantages, such as versatility, choice, modification of all the parameters necessary to wind yarn on flanged bobbins.

SSM Schärer Schweiter Mettler AG, Switzerland, has planned to launch eight new products in the winding and doubling segments and one in the air-texturing for the first time in India.

Special focus lies on the SSM X-Series: the machines (TWX-W/D, PWX-W and PSX-W/D) are the most economised winding solution, reduced to the max yet maintaining highest flexibility for any cost efficient winding application. Another eye catcher will be the SSM XENO – a modular platform covering all dye package winding, rewinding and doubling applications with three leading SSM winding technologies – as well as the well-known sewing thread finish winding machine TK2-20 CT for cones.

Speaking on the plans for India-ITME, JM Balaji, Head – Marketing, Lakshmi Ring Travellers (Coimbatore) Limited, said, “Yes we have further launches planned in the coming months. Our R&D is working on the same and you can expect some during India-ITME and others in the next year. We had increased our capacity recently by adding the third manufacturing plant and this will help us in providing quicker deliveries and also cater to growing market share of LRT.”

Prashant Group will be displaying its latest innovations in this exhibition. Amoli Shah, Director, Prashant Group of Companies, Ahmedabad, “We will be also showing the world’s fastest automatic robotic sectional warping machine model PB 9 along with creel. This machine is suitable for all types of yarn and it can make full length beam much faster than the regular high speed sectional warping machine. You can reduce the labour cost, yarn inventory cost and save the space.”

The new generation machines from Prashant Group of Companies bring a new dimension to the sectional warping whilst guaranteeing efficient production combined with the highest warp quality. Unique features of this machine are: endless warping, highest productivity, flexibility, perfect warp quality, automatic leasing, finest quality weaver beam, and independent use from both side of creel.

– SAMUEL JOSEPH & KARTHIK MUTHUVEERAN