The ongoing lockdown has severely hit the textile industry which is so far dominated by smaller manufacturers said Rahul Mehta, Chief Mentor, Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI).
Apparel industry body chief was speaking at a webinar on ‘Rebooting Textile Industry.’
He also said industry will become a low margin industry and smaller players will struggle to survive. Mehta feels there will be consolidation within the textile industry.
“It is sad that the ones who were doing textile business for 30 years or more, just because of one bad year they are thinking about closing down,” Mehta said.
With around 80 percent of the garment industry mostly micro, small and medium enterprises, CMAI, which has around 3,700 members employing over 7 lakh people, said most of its members do not have the kind of reserves to see them through 3-6 months of this magnitude.
Currently, India is going through an unprecedented complete lockdown since March 22, which was extended to July 31, to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Mehta said CMAI had done a survey among its members and analysed around 1,500 responses and the responses were quite frightening.
According to the survey, almost 20 percent of them said that they were thinking of closing down the business after lockdown. At least 60 percent of them anticipated a drop in revenue to the tune of 40 percent, which is massive, if you look in terms of number of employment," he said.
Going ahead, Mehta feels, customers will move from unbranded to branded clothing further impacting the smaller players.
If the garment industry closes down, it would impact the entire value chain from fabric supply industry to brand to the zipper and label industry, Mehta said.
India’s textile sector is the second-largest employer generator in the country after agriculture and India is the first largest exporter of textiles and apparel in the world.
In the same webinar, brand guru Harish Bijoor said Atmanirbhar is the way to grow for textile industry.
“In the garment industry there nearly 129 mln people involved, 30 unicorns, $30 bln, it largely depends on foreign currency. It is a export dependency industry. But now we need to follow desinomics by becoming ‘Aatmanirbhar’ (Self Reliant) as advocated by PM Modi,” said Harish Bijooor, Brand Guru and Founder, Harish Bijoor Consultants Inc.
Siddharth Bindra, Managing Director of women’s ethnic wear Brand Biba said COVID-19 is a Black Swan event for textile industry and there will be tectonic shift from offline to online.
Nitin Mohan Founder and Director of men's fashion brand Blackberrys agreed with Bindra opinion and said, “We are getting in to the era of shared returns so textile players should not ignore e-commerce platforms for growing their business.”
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