The textile industry in the country should invest more in research and development (R&D) than going for new machineries, C K Wong, executive director, USA-based Association of the Non-Wovens Fabrics Industry (INDA) said today.
Investment in machinery would yield slow returns, whereas by pumping money in R&D, one can develop own products and marketing strategies, which would yield better results in a short span of time, Wong said, while addressing a two-day international workshop on 'Marketing and Technology of Technical Textiles' here.
Stating that priority products differed from country to country, he said majority of textile-dominated countries, barring India, were facing an economic slowdown, which can be capitalised by Indian textile industry in its favour.
M M Chokkalingam, chief general manager, National Textile Corporattion said global demand for technical textile would increase by 23 per cent in volume and 17 per cent in value term in the next six years.
He said there was no product specific and consumer source data in the field.
K V Srinivasan, chairman, Southern India Mills' Association said Union Textile Minister Dayanidhi Maran had assured to look into various problems and find solutions to them.
The two-day workshop is jointly organised by Dr Seshadri Ramkumar of Texas Tech University and Bangalore-based TechniTex Nonwovens, in which 140 delegates are participating.