Report says Indian textile & apparel market can grow to $250 billion by 2025/26

Indian textile and apparel market has the potential to grow to $250 billion by 2025/26, as per an FICCI-Wazir Advisors report. To achieve this target and build a sustainable textile industry going forward, Indian businesses need to leverage government support schemes and global buyer needs of sustainability, and align with value chain traceability.

Indian textile industry needs to focus on government schemes like Production Linked Incentive Scheme, PM Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel Scheme, export incentives, etc to invest in new products, build scale of operations, and improve competitiveness, suggested the report titled 'Building a Roadmap for $250 Billion Sustainable Textile Industry'.

The key global trends impacting the textile and apparel industry in the report included high focus on sustainability and circular fashion, the 'China plus 1' strategy of global brands providing opportunity for countries like India to increase their export share, increasing need for digitalisation across the fashion supply chain, and growing consumption of synthetic-based textile and apparel.

The FICCI-Wazir Advisors report also stated that industry should also focus on automation and digitalisation to improve processes and efficiency levels; bring strong focus on people and skill development, start leveraging free trade agreements to tap new markets; develop capabilities and build capacities in synthetic textiles and technical textiles, and adopt global best practices for manufacturing excellence. The government should bring additional support to the existing textile clusters which will help build capabilities and allow MSMEs to compete globally.

Released during the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry TAG 2022 Annual Textile Conference, the knowledge report highlighted the key global trends, market scenario, and opportunities for India in the textile and apparel market. It further elaborated the key initiatives that India will need to achieve the target of $250 billion by 2025/26 and build a sustainable industry going forward.

Adopting good regulatory practices, increased focus of quality, compliance issues with enhanced investments and continuous engagement with government key to achieve target, said Ajit Chavan, secretary textile committee, ministry of textiles, government of India. He also suggested that state government's textile policy should include parameters of quality and compliance beyond incentives.

The Indian textile and apparel market is estimated at $153 billion in 2021, with domestic market contributing $110 billion and exports constituting $43 billion, as per the report.

Global apparel consumption in 2021 is estimated to be around $1.5 trillion, and it is estimated to reach $2 trillion by 2025. Global textile and apparel trade is around $869 billion and expected to grow at 3.5% compound annual growth rate to reach $1000 billion by 2025/26.