Introduction
India’s textiles sector is one of the oldest industries in the Indian economy, dating back to several centuries.
The industry is extremely varied, with hand-spun and hand-woven textiles sectors at one end of the spectrum, while the capital-intensive sophisticated mills sector on the other end. The decentralised power looms/ hosiery and knitting sector forms the largest component in the textiles sector. The close linkage of textiles industry to agriculture (for raw materials such as cotton) and the ancient culture and traditions of the country in terms of textiles makes it unique in comparison to other industries in the countr. India’s textiles industry has a capacity to produce wide variety of products suitable for different market segments, both within India and across the world.
Market Size
India’s textiles industry contributed seven per cent of the industry output (in value terms) in FY19. It contributed two per cent to the GDP of India and employed more than 45 million people in FY19. The sector contributed 15 per cent to India’s export earnings in FY19.
Textiles industry has around 4.5 crore employed workers including 35.22 lakh handloom workers across the country.
The domestic textiles and apparel market stood at an estimated US$ 100 billion in FY19.
The production of raw cotton in India is estimated to have reached 36.04 million bales in FY20^. During FY19, production of fibre in India stood at 1.44 million tonnes (MT) and reached 1.60 MT in FY20 (till January 2020), while that for yarn, the production stood at 4,762 million kgs during same period.
source: IBEF