Written By Devangshu Dutta A Different Scale It is a fact that, even with over US$ 6 billion (around Rs. 30,000 crores) of exports and around US$ 8 billion (more than Rs. 40,000 crores) of domestic market volumes, the ready-to-wear apparel industry in India is dominated by small-scale companies. Due to various policies, business environment and various other factors, Indian industry has grown up as a fragmented industry. This has resulted a vast difference in the size of the Indian companies and the size of the international companies they serve – a difference that means that an average international customer…
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In Europe as also in the West, the two textile giants, India and China, are often referred to as the elephant and the dragon respectively - India is, usually, the heavier, slower but a more patient elephant while China is portrayed as the faster, fire-breathing and market-usurping dragon which can occasionally run into problems because of its inability to cope with smaller details. China may have emerged as the textile and apparel superpower because of its low-cost mass production capability. Nevertheless, India has been the quiet player which has been working backstage and making inroads into the global markets. India…
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Despite its disadvantages ( outlined in Insight into India: part I ), India presents several opportunities as well. Opportunities for sourcing companies As India's basket of production increases, retailers, brands and importers can explore specific opportunities suited to their business. A single-point of advice to them would be to "go beyond the obvious." Whether you have sourced from India previously or not, do not be limited to your past image of what the Indian supply base can produce. Prompt your suppliers to show you something new in terms of product type, fabric developments etc during each meeting. The structure of…
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The Indian textile sector has its roots going back several thousand years. After the industrial revolution in Europe, this sector in India also saw growth of an industrial complex. However, over the last 50 years the textile industry in India has shown a chequered performance. Today the industry contributes around 14 per cent to industrial production in the country, is estimated to directly employ approximately 35 million people (in addition to the indirect employment in allied sectors), accounts for about 27 per cent of the country's exports, and is, in sum, an important economic engine for the nation. In part,…
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For more than four centuries now, Delhi's Chandni Chowk has retained its charm. Nothing quite matches its smells and sounds. When French physician Francis Bernier visited India way back in 1663, in Chandni Chowk he found shops selling fruits from Kashgar in Afghanistan, gold and silk brocades from Varanasi and Surat, jewellery and wine. He noticed the kahva khanas - tea houses where the locals would gather to sip the brew and talk about the events du jour. Bernier labelled Chandni Chowk as the most important commercial centre of the East. Its pre-eminence continued till the 1930s, when…
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