Textiles Minister Presents 23rd ‘AEPC Excellence Honours’ Awards for RMG Exports for 2021-22 & 2022-23
29 December 2023: Piyush Goyal, Union Minister for the Commerce & Industry, Consumer Affair, Food & Public Distribution and Textile, Government of India presented AEPC prestigious exports awards to RMG exporters recently. The ‘AEPC Excellence Honours’ was conferred for 2021-22 and 2022-23. The awards recognize extraordinary contributions made by Indian Apparel exporters in building our modern export enterprises and helping to further develop a unique Indian export culture.
Addressing the gathering Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister for the Textiles, said “40 by 30 will be a fitting tribute to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to make India a developed nation by 2047. Let’s expand textile exports to 100 billion through our collective efforts. If RMG exports can grow from 16 billion USD to 40 billion USD in this period it will truly be a game changer for future of textiles industry and in our effort to provide jobs to the large section of people and create a value-added proposition.”
Applauding the industry, Goyal said, “The encouragement we received from the industry led to 55% exports growth from 500 billion USD to 776 billion USD in both merchandise and services exports in the last two years between 2021-23.”
The event began with the ‘40 by 30’ theme Focus Group Discussion (FDG) `with following topics: Making Indian Apparel more competitive; Strengthening Industry Academia Linkage, Exploring new frontiers with MMF, Compliance and Sustainability- How to make it India’s edge? Major issues which emerged during the FGD were picked for the Power Group Discussion (PGD) with the following discussants – Rohit Kansal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, Deepak Seth, Founder and Chairman, Pearl Global industries Ltd., Nitin Prasad, Managing Director, PVH Supply Indian sub-continent and GOC, Dr. Ajay Sahai, Director General & CEO, FIEO and Naren Goenka, Chairman, AEPC.
Speaking at power group during the event Naren Goenka Chairman AEPC said, “Indian apparel industry has been able to withstand hard and testing times during the pandemic wherein despite the global demand being stagnant, Indian apparel exports grew at a rate of 30.35% in 2021-22 over 2020-21 and 1.10% in 2022-23 over 2021-22. While we commemorate this success today, we are also vigilant of the fact that India’s apparel exports have been constant to the tune of 3-4% of global export share during the past 3-4 years.”
One of the major issue regarding poor export competitiveness is of Indian Apparel are poor Economies of Scale, Apparel industry comprises 80% of exporters with around 10 cr. turnover. Average machines in Indian apparel manufacturing units are 250-400 whereas competing countries have an average of 800-1,000 machines. Also, there are hardly any vertically integrated units unlike in Vietnam and other competing countries. Both these factors limit the capacity for the industry to invest in productivity enhancement technologies.
Replying to queries of the industry on scale and infrastructure Rohit Kansal, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Textiles said, “Global market is trillion dollar and so even when we reach 100 billion of textiles exports, we will be only 10% of total textiles trade. From that perspective the target 40 billion seems to be eminently achievable. Our PM MITRA initiative seeks to address the issues flagged by the industry such as scale, investment and infrastructure. The size of the PM MITRA Park is at least 1000 acres which are supposed to be vertically integrated. It addresses the issue of land acquisitions as land is all acquired. It addresses issues of clearances because all clearances have been provided, it also addresses the issue of state support as SPV is being headed by state as they run the park.”
Gold trophy for the highest global exports 2021-22 & 2022-23 (above Rs. 500 cr. in each year) went to Shahi Exports (P) Ltd., Faridabad, Silver trophy to Richa Global Exports (P) Ltd., Gurugram, Arvind Limited, Ahmedabad gets Bronze.
Dr. A Sakthivel Chairman, President FIEO gets the award for mentor of the Indian Apparel Industry and Deepak Seth Founder and Group Chairman Pearl Global Industries Ltd. awarded as Icon of the Indian Apparel Industry.
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