Speaking in Mumbai-India at the “Curtain Raiser Ceremony,” for the 2014 TECHNOTEX technical textiles Expo to be held in March next year in Mumbai, Mrs. Panabaka Lakshmi, Union Minister of State for Textiles, India stated that even though this sector is in its nascent stage, it offers enormous growth potential.

She expressed the importance for this sector from the high level manufacturing committee headed by the Prime Minister of India.

According to a press release from Government of India, technical textiles sector has grown from a size of US $7 billion in 2007-08 to the current size of US $15.2 billion registering an annual growth of 11 percent.

According to media reports, Indian government has planned an increase in the fund outlay for technical textiles sector to over US $117 million for the 12th five year plan period (2012-17).

Indian technical sector encompasses all performance based textiles involving fibers, yarns, wovens, nonwovens, etc., that cater to non-commodity textile applications. It is expected that the employment in this sector will grow at an annual rate of 13% to reach 2.6 million by 2016-17.