Gathered at the annual EU-India Leaders Conference 2023 in Brussels, government representatives, industry heads, and business leaders discussed new avenues of collaboration, especially under textile cooperation and the proposed EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
Experts discussed the inclusion of a zero-duty policy for textiles within the proposed FTA to foster mutual growth. Further, industry leaders emphasized that a policy alignment in industry-related laws will help create a level playing field and reduce discrepancies.
Pratik Gadia, founder and CEO, The Yarn Bazaar, who was a speaker and co-moderator for a panel discussion on EU-India textile cooperation shared that the Indian side of representation presented their concerns with respect to multiple certification requirements at different textile companies in the EU, which amplifies the cost for an Indian company to take multiple registrations. On the other hand, EU representatives highlighted the challenges associated with BIS standards for textile products in India.
Some of the other representatives included Dr Amit Lath, CEO of Sharda Group of Companies, Sanjay Jain, Chairman, ICC Textile Committee and MD, TT Limited, and Bhadresh Dodhia, Chairman of the Synthetic & Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council and Director Dodhia Group, among others.
Noting the respective strengths of each nation in textiles, experts discussed the possible policy alignments. “We discussed what kind of policies can be bought in to encourage R&D and technology transfer between the two nations in the field of textile design and innovation,” Gadia said. Further, he shared that the panel discussed how collaboration can be done to empower textile companies from both the EU and India to capture a larger share of the global textile market.
