Tirupur, India´s biggest cotton knitting textile hub, is foraying in to manmade fibre apparels to beat the lean season they encounter in exports of knitted cotton garments. ´Since exports of cotton based apparels are season based, knitting machines lie idle for a few months in a year. So the foray in to synthetic textiles will mean that knitters will be able to run their export units throughout the year´, Sakhtivel, President of Tirupur Exporters Association.
Offering more details, he says, ´We have already imported a knitting machine to knit synthetic fabrics at the AEPC managed Knitwear Technology Mission (KTM) in Tirupur and currently we are making samples of knitted fabrics made from polyester, nylon etc.´
In 2013-14, exports of garments amounted to around Rs 17,800 crore from Tirupur.