WTO BODY AND TEXTILES COMMITTEE TO IMPROVE STANDARDS OF INDIAN TEXTILES

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The International Trade Centre of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Textiles Committee, a statutory body under the Ministry of Textiles will jointly take up a project for improving the competitiveness of the Indian textiles and clothing industry. The project to be implemented over the next three years will help the Indian textile and clothing industry to face the challenges of phasing out of quotas in 2004.

The project will help in identifying new markets through forward integration and add new product designs and thereby improve the quality. It will also make efforts to bring together garment manufactures in selected clusters for applying a comprehensive approach towards value-chain management and customer satisfaction by developing a holistic approach. It will also help manufacturers in selected clusters to reposition themselves vis-à-vis their main competitions in the world markets.

For implementing the above targets, the Textiles Committee will be the joint partner of the International Trade Centre (ITC) and will work in close coordination with various Export Promotion Councils, NIFT, Central and State Government agencies and industry associations. The International Trade Centre will take the services of teams of international and national consultants to carry out the activities aimed at achieving the objectives. The funding requirement of the project will be met by the ITC, the Textiles Committee will provide its infrastructure and manpower in implementing the project.

The Project will be launched with a series of workshops on IT based International Benchmarking Tool for Apparel Industry developed by the ITC. With the help of this Tool, a garment manufacturer/exporter can compare his efficiency as against the best in the world. Such analytical comparison provides insights into strengths and weaknesses of the company based on which suitable corrective action could be initiated to global excellence. The first such workshop will be held in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, tomorrow followed by workshops in Bangalore (25^th and 26^th September) and Ludhiana (2^nd and 3^rd Otober).