119-year-old International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF), which represents the entire textile value chain across the world has stated that the global textile industry has been facing unprecedented challenges.
The newly elected President of ITMF, K. V. Srinivasan has pointed out that ITMF’s latest Global Textile Industry Survey conducted in November 2023 revealed that weakening demand, inflation, geopolitical issues, raw material price volatility, steep increase in energy charges, shortage of labour and rising interest rates had been reported as the major root causes for the slowdown of the global textile industry.
He also adds that around 44% of the respondents have reported some sort of cancellations of orders during the last four months, albeit only 5% reported major cancellations of 30% and more. Furthermore, he has stated that the survey also aimed at identifying the possibility of revival before May 2024.
The survey revealed also that 44% of survey participants expect that in six months’ time the business situation will be more favourable, while 16% expect it to be less favourable. The balance of +28 percentage points (pp) in November is higher than the +20 pp in September.
As a representative of the international Body, Srinivasan has suggested to the Central and State Governments in India to stall the shortsighted policies relating to raw materials, power, labour, and new investments until the industry revives.
He has opined that one year moratorium for payment of loans, conversion of short-term loans into long term loans and extending additional working capital are some of the financial relief measures urgently required to prevent the textile units becoming NPAs and avoid closures throwing several lakhs of people out of jobs
