AHMEDABAD: RAPIDLY GROWING GARMENT HUB

With multiple crowns to add to its glory like the textile state of India, the denim capital of India, Gujarat, at present, has a textile market of around US $ 25 billion and contributes nearly 12 per cent to India’ s textile exports. The list is quite long and impressive as Gujarat covers the entire supply chain right from cotton production to textile machinery. And now, Ahmedabad, one of the biggest textile hub and the largest city of Gujarat, is growing as a garmenting hub. The companies based here, and working in an organized way, are in the process of huge expansion for garments, while some of them are taking the IPO route. There are emerging garment manufacturers purely focusing on the domestic market but having state-of-the-art manufacturing units. Some of them are also having expert technical consultants working with them. The vertical integrated companies are already going strong in garmenting, and are further diversifying and adding new product categories, expanding both into export as well as domestic market. Team Apparel Online visited these companies to understand their growth strategy in this booming garmenting scenario.

In textile segment for last six decades, CA Patel Textiles, entered into casual and semi-casual shirt manufacturing just six months before for its own brand‘ ITALFIC’ with 200 stitching machines. It further plans to install 800 stitching machines in the next two years. Manufacturing millions of garments per month, offering an entire range of fashion garments, Komal Texfab is now diversifying into jeans and ethnic wear manufacturing with an investment of nearly Rs. 50 crore. It is also going to double its circular knitting capacity which is currently 200 tonnes per month. Globe Textiles India Ltd., manufacturing 2 lakh jeans( majorly basic as well as semi-fashionable) for the Indian and the overseas market, is also increasing its stitching capacity. Kolkata based brand, AppleEye recently tied up for 25,000 garments per month with one such Ahmedabad-based company. Two years old, Bubble Bee Export House, which had seen 200 per cent growth last year, is in the process to install 250 stitching machines. These are ample examples which prove Ahmedabad’ s strength in garmenting.

There is no doubt that Gujarat, or even Ahmedabad, has a strong availability of cotton fabric since a long time, reasonably good labour availability, State Government support which motivates entrepreneurs to move forward. Already going strong in processing and manufacturing of home furnishing products, apparel is the only segment which was not explored in Ahmedabad, and hence companies in this city are naturally moving towards this. Processing / printing, yet another strength of Ahmedabad, is also one of the reasons for knitted garments’ growth here.“ Garmenting was already here in Ahmedabad but it was majorly for the domestic market and the unorganized market. However, since last few years, it is growing in an organized way because only garmenting is left to be ventured further. We have everything required for support structure, right from yarn to finishing in surrounding areas, so

Suresh P. Bagrecha, CMD, Komal Texfab

Yash Patel( L), Director, Shirting Fabric & Garment Division with Swapnil Patel, Director from CA Patel Textiles

20 Apparel Online India | JULY 16-31, 2017 | www. apparelresources. com

Apparel Online India 16-31 July' 17 | Page 20

AHMEDABAD: RAPIDLY GROWING GARMENT HUB