This is time for the Indian textile industry to focus on scale, quality, speed and higher volume and capture world markets, according to Indian minister for textiles Piyush Goyal, who recently told a session at the 10th edition of the International Exhibition and Conference on Technical Textiles in Mumbai that many international companies tell him they are unable to find high-quality high-volume suppliers in the country.

“I appeal to start-ups as well as large corporations to consider expanding rapidly in the technical textiles field. Our share of the global market is about 2.5 per cent; I believe that the Indian market will grow faster than 12 per cent if we are able to showcase its purposes,” he said.

He urged the industry and other stakeholders to examine what new research, new compounds, fabrics, composites and final products can be leveraged to capture the global market.

“We will be happy to offer all eight textile research associations and other government institutes to support any private sector initiative, to get high quality scientific rigour into your innovations and fast-track your proposals,” he was quoted as saying in an official release.

The minister announced that a committee will be constituted to oversee and monitor training of manpower for the technical textile sector under the SAMARTH scheme.