Apparel Online India Magazine December 1st Issue 2018 | Page 22

TEX-FILE
CITI’s Global Textiles Conclave 2018
M E G A E V E N T D I S C U S S E S D I S R U P T I O N S A N D I N N O VAT I O N S F O R S U S TA I N A B L E G R O W T H
M. Venkaiah Naidu, Vice President, India; Smriti Irani, Union Minister of Textiles; Sanjay Jain, Chairman, CITI; and industry stalwarts together during the inaugural session of the conclave
I
t is a known fact that the textile
value chain has been under great
stress since the last few years.
Bringing forth the problems being
faced by this value chain both at
the local and the global level, as
also debating what could be the
best possible solutions, was the
main agenda of the Global Textiles
Conclave (GTC) 2018, held at Vigyan
Bhawan, New Delhi. The biggest-ever
conclave for the Indian textile and
apparel industry till date, GTC was
part of The Confederation of Indian
Textile Industry’s (CITI) Diamond
Jubilee Celebration. The two-day long
thought-provoking event covered the
entire textile value chain from ‘FARM
to FASHION’, and was based on the
theme of ‘Disruptions and Innovations
for Sustainable Growth’. More than
30 expert speakers from across the
globe exchanged ideas and shared
their experiences … and the common
theme during all discussions was
the importance of being aligned to
new technology, being innovative in
products and processes and remaining
sustainable at every step/process.
This perception was reiterated despite
the plethora of challenges at personal,
national and international level. The
Indian textile and apparel industry
ESSENTIALS
Pioneering awards
were given to
Shekhar Agarwal,
Vice Chairman,
RSWM Ltd.;
P. Nataraj, MD,
KPR Mills Ltd.;
Neeraj Jain, JMD,
Vardhman Textiles
Ltd. ; and Sanjay
Jayavarthanavelu,
CMD, LMW Ltd.
has a bright future and every company
has to gear up to be a part of this
growth story.
In line with the resolve to be in
sync with the changing dynamics of
the business, M. Venkaiah Naidu,
Vice President of India, during
his inaugural address, urged the
industry to modernise. “Our textile
industry must take lead in industry
4.0, in view of the distinct advantage
enjoyed by us in the IT sector,” he
emphasised, further adding that the
industry should fully tap the potential
of IoT cloud, artificial intelligence,
big data and analytics. Reiterating
his confidence on the India story, the
Vice President claimed that the Indian
textile and apparel industry has the
potential to grow at a CAGR of 14 per
cent and reach US $ 300 billion by
2025 from US $ 150 billion achieved in
the year 2017.
In her address, Smriti Irani, Union
Minister of Textiles expressed
gratitude to the industry captains
for supporting the Government in
streamlining GST reforms. She
also urged the industry to tap the
potential in technical textiles which
has been identified as a sunrise
sector. During the valedictory address,
Suresh Prabhu, Union Minister of
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Commerce & Industry and Civil
Aviation motivated the audience
by saying that the third industrial
policy after independence will be
launched soon and notably it will be
very beneficial for the apparel and
textile industry. Aditi Das Rout,
Trade Advisor, Ministry of Textiles
informed that to increase apparel
and textile trade, the Government is
focusing on countries like Indonesia,
Vietnam through ASEAN, as also
Russia and South Korea in order to
get the maximum mileage.
Commensurating with the event, CITI
launched an innovation contest named
INNOTEX 2018, months before its
Diamond Jubilee Celebrations and
the contest was said to be the first-of-
a-kind in the history of Indian textile
and clothing industry. The contest
sought applications for innovations
in design, method, process, product
and cost in any of the textile-related
areas starting from ginning till
garmenting, including technical
textiles. The criteria for the awards
were: Commercialisation Viability,
Uniqueness & Need for Innovation,
Scalability for Growth & Use and
Usefulness of the Innovation/Impact
Generated. CITI received a number
of applications and out of those, the