Over the last 2 weeks, anti-China sentiments have been growing in India, owing to the ongoing border clashes between both the countries.
What these strong anti-China sentiments have done is that it has brought several industries – and the country – together to boycott Chinese products. And this couldn’t have come at the right time when the nation has also been strongly talking about #AtmaNirbharBharat (self-reliant India).
According to a report released by Statista, China exports US $ 75.5 billion products to India (in 2018), while India is comparatively smaller with its export figures to China being just US $ 16.6 billion, which is around 5 per cent of China’s imports.
Out of US $ 75.5 billion products imported from China, US $ 36.8 billion are electronics and machinery and that’s nearly half. So it will take some time before India can even think of doing away with it. It will be tough!
But as far as textiles are concerned, it shouldn’t be that tough! China exports 4 billion textiles to India. Of these India imports US $ 460 million worth synthetic yarn and US $ 360 million worth synthetic fabric from China every year. Add to it, it imports US $ 140 million worth accessories like zippers, buttons and hangers, among others. India does not have local supply base to meet these increasing demands of these raw materials.
And that’s where a good planning and a conservational approach by the industry and the Government are required to take the country to the path of self-reliance. The country should first look at local sourcing, though it may increase the cost of finished goods by 3 to 4 per cent. The Government should conduct more meetings with the apparel and textile manufacturers and industry experts and exchange ideas.
Here it is important to note that the Indian Government has provided a significant relief to synthetic yarn makers in the country by abolishing the 2.5 per cent anti-dumping duty on Purified Tephthalic Acid (PTA) so as to strengthen the country’s synthetic textiles industry.
Notably, as per data of Ministry of Commerce, India imported apparels of US $ 197.89 million (HS code 61, knitted apparels) from China in 2018-19 which was 11 per cent more compared to 2017-18. Similarly, import of non-knitted apparels (HS code 62) from China was US $ 103.68 million; it noticed negative growth of 11.31 per cent compared to 2017-18.
Apparel trade associations in India, brands and exporters are already finding different ways to stop any apparel product from China to India.
Also Read: #BoycottChina! Indian apparel industry is gearing up
And we have done this before in the case of PPE manufacturing. On 1 March 2020, not a single factory in India produced PPE. By 18 May 2020, the country was making 4.5 lakh PPE every day. That’s no mean achievement!
In fact, if we take 30 March as a reference point when India was making 8,000 PPE every day, the growth has been a whopping 56-fold in just 60 days.
So there’s all the skill, will and resources to repeat the same for the textile sector.
The world knows by now India has huge availability of raw materials. In addition to being the largest cotton producer in the world (27 per cent of global cotton production), India is also the second largest producer of polyester and third largest maker of viscose in the world. Now that’s an advantage which many other apparel hubs like Bangladesh, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Sri Lanka too can’t boast of!
Also, one cannot deny that India is one of the few textile manufacturing countries in the world which has a presence of complete textile value chain – that is from fibre/filament to garment manufacturing.
Cost of manufacturing is still competitive and even lower than China and Vietnam.
India does have the skill, infrastructure and even Government support to make up for the 4 billion import of textiles and what’s encouraging is that with apparel manufacturers coming together to boycott Chinese products, the first step seems to have been taken.