Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, has institutes devoted to industrial textiles, home textiles and medical textiles. Coimbatore is one of the major textile centers in the country. With several medium and large scale industries looking at technical textiles for diverse applications, these centers will promote innovative applications for textiles, especially using non-woven materials.

One center promotes research, encourages industry to use the machinery installed, takes up testing, imparts training, and also manufactures products for commercial use. It has set up full production lines to make wet wipes for diverse uses and needle punching coir products and is working on various raw materials to produce non-woven mats that can be used as filter in different industries.

The market size for industrial textiles in the country is Rs. 9,929 crores. For medical textiles it is Rs 4,282 crores and for home textiles it is Rs 9,274 crores. The market is growing at the rate of six per cent to 14 per cent annually, depending on the product.

In 2012-2013, import of industrial textiles was 22 per cent of the total technical textiles imported, import of medical textiles was 15 per cent and import of home textiles was seven per cent. Export of technical textiles was to the tune of Rs 7,117 crores and of this 15.1 per cent was industrial textiles, 9.9 per cent was medical textiles, and 10.9 per cent was home textiles.