For setting up a technical textile cluster in Tamil Nadu, the Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO) is talking to several agencies where common facilities, including R&D could be provided for start-ups. Since very few are into export of technical textiles at present, A Sakthivel, Regional Chairman, FIEO (Southern Region) says though the potential is immense, exporters would have to look at product diversification to achieve higher growth.

India’s export performance data for January this year has been positive and remained so for the last five months of current fiscal after two years of continuous negative growth. World trade is expected to be better during in the current fiscal (2017)and in the next (2018) at least in emerging economies.

But the prices of all products have started to fall globally. This could pose a huge challenge for manufacturing sector in India. Taking this into consideration, the Commerce Ministry should consider the present market situation and extend better facilities to the exporters in its mid-term review of Foreign Trade Policy, Sakthivel added.