Tiruppur is rebounding from recent setbacks. February 2024 saw a 5.5 per cent increase in export turnover compared to Feb 2023. March 2024 is also expected to show further improvements. With 20,000 units in apparel production and ancillary units, Tiruppur employs 1 million, 65 per cent of them are women. K M Subramaniam, President, tiruppur Exporters Association, discusses future prospects with IE.
IE: How has export been and what are the impacts of the FTAs?
KMS: Slowdowns are unavoidable in the market. Tiruppur has seen many ups and downs in the past 30 years. Exporters have withered several market meltdowns and have managed to come out stronger. Though the FTAs with Australia and Dubai have helped, agreements with UK and EU will be more impactful as a major portion of export are destined there.
IE: Have manufacturers adopted green practices?
KMS: Tiruppur started greening activities almost 20 years prior to other competing clusters. Huge investments for attaining zero liquid discharge in processing units, capacity to generate green power (four times the actual consumption), mass tree plantations, rainwater harvesting, desilting and maintaining of lakes, are a few to mention. Currently no buyer/brand pays any premium for the greening initiatives. However, we are confident that all our sustainability efforts will be rewarded both through increased order flow and a better and equitable price in the future.
IE: Will graduation of Bangladesh from least developed country status have an impact?
KMS: The least developed country status for Bangladesh has been extended up to the year 2029. But at Tiruppur, we believe in the superiority of quality and merit of products and do not see any other competing cluster as a direct threat.
IE: What problems do you face?
KMS: Focusing totally on cotton without giving due importance to man-made fibre (MMF) is the biggest problem of Tiruppur today. In view of its versatility and changes in fashion trends, MMF has managed to capture almost 70 per cent of the global garment trade. Our association, in the past two years, has conducted a number of awareness programmes on MMF production and problems attached to it. Lot of manufacturers have made huge investments in machinery for processing and production of MMF garments. Tiruppur will be able to cope up with the problem within a short time.
IE: How is the labour situation?
KMS: With constant expansion activities there is always a demand for extra set of hands in all industries. Continuous inflow of migrant labour from 19 north and north eastern states have addressed this problem. Development of the state of Uttar Pradesh has not had significant effect on the inflow. Today almost 2 lakh migrant workers are gainfully employed in the Tiruppur cluster.
IE: Can you brief the supply chain dynamics within the Tiruppur textile industry.
KMS: 55 per cent of the spinning capacity of India is situated in the Tamil Nadu. Tiruppur sources its requirement of yarn, which forms almost 50 per cent of the cost input, within the state. However, for some special yarns, we are dependent on outside sources but its the availability has never been a source of worry.
IE: Emerging trends or opportunities that will shape the future of the textile industry in Tiruppur?
KMS: There are a lot of misconceptions about the work atmosphere and minimum wages in the Tiruppur cluster being spread by the media in the west. Tirupur Stakeholders Forum (TSF), an initiative of TEA, is taking all efforts to break this and propagate the correct information through its members. We are also requesting government of India to hold roadshows in selected fashion capitals of the world to showcase that the Tiruppur cluster is a sustainable cluster. By these efforts, we are confident that the cluster’s image will grow multifold in all areas of knitwear production.
