Japan to Help India Improve Textile Quality, Raise Exports

India is looking to expand its paltry 1.24% share of the Japanese textile market by getting its government to pitch in and help Indian exporters by improving the testing standards and better understanding the requirements of their customers.
Kick-starting the initiative, the Centre held a workshop in association with Japanese quality regulator QTEC. The idea, said Subrata Gupta, joint secretary in the textiles ministry, was to change the "mindset" and "enhance" the quantum of textiles exports to Japan. Japan is a major textile importing country with almost 97% of their textile requirement being sourced through imports mainly from China (62.11%), Vietnam (10.56%), Indonesia (4.12%) and Bangladesh (2.76%).

India accounts for just 1.24%.

The association with QTEC is important in view of the fact that India's exports have been going down compared to countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam. For instance, it could only notch up $40 billion in revenues from textile exports as against a target of $47.5 billion set in 2015-16.

The association with QTEC is expected to not only expose Indian exporters to quality expectations from Japanese buyers but also help the textile ministry give a push to overall exports. "This is the first of many other measures we plan to increase exports to Japan, which is one of the major textile importing countries. It's a market which has tremendous potential for India," said Ajit B Chavan, secretary, textiles committee.

Asked whether the Chinese presence was likely to be an obstacle, Chavan said that once the Indian exporters understood the requirements of the Japanese market, "wresting" a part of the market from competitors would not be difficult.

The MoU with Japanese Textile Products Quality and Technology Centre (QTEC) was signed in November last year, during the visit of PMNarendra Modi to Japan. Equipped with CCTV cameras, smoke and fire detection system, the 19-coach Tejas train will have biovacuum toilets and GPSbased passenger information display system. Unlike the Shatabdi Express, passengers will have the option to opt for onboard food. There will be comfortable seating arrangements and each seat will have LED TV with touch control system and call bell facilities.

"There will be tea and coffee vending machines and snack tables at each coach as catering facility for passengers in the new designed coaches," said an official, adding that there will be magazines, snacks tables, LCD screens, and wi-fi.

In a first in non-suburban train service in railways, the coaches manufactured at the Rail Coach Factory in Kapurthala, will have automatic entrance door. Tejas Express will also be pressed into service in Delhi-Chandigarh and Delhi-Lucknow sectors.