Technical textiles market to double in '08

An internal document prepared by the textiles ministry has projected the technical textiles market to double to Rs 42,006 crore by 2007-08 from Rs 20,128 crore in 2005-06. It further estimates the market to grow to Rs 78,060 crore by 2014-15 with an average annual growth of 14 per cent y-o-y.

According to the document, technical textiles are one of the faster-growing sectors of the global textile industry and are likely to increase by leaps and bounds, coupled with the growth of the Indian medical industry.

Textile materials, manufactured primarily for their technical performance and functional properties rather than aesthetic and decorative values, are commonly known as technical textiles and are broadly divided into 12 categories, comprising clothtech, packtech, indutech, sporttech, meditech, mobiltech, hometech, agrotech, protech, buildtech, oekotech and geotextiles.

The ministry document finds that the growth in the domestic healthcare sector is expected to be more than 17 per cent a year in view of the rising per capita spending on healthcare products, greater exposure to international products in this area, importance and awareness of healthcare insurance and medical tourism.

The healthcare industry is fragmented into corporate and small hospitals and nursing homes. The note says, "healthcare industry generates $17 billion of business a year in India".

The textile industry largely depends on this sector to speed up growth.

The share of meditech, a part of the healthcare sector in the Indian technical textiles market, is around 5 per cent.

A wide range of medical textile products and healthcare and hygiene products "� including sanitary napkins (35 per cent market share), surgical dressings (30 per cent), sutures (20 per cent) and diapers and orthopaedic implants "� contributes considerably to the meditech market in the country.

The other avenue where the importance of technical textiles is growing is in the field of cardiology, where, according to government estimates, 35,000 open heart surgeries are done every year, thereby increasing the need in volumes for filters in operations. Till date, about 60 per cent of the need is met by imports.

Says a highly placed textiles ministry official, "The document basically stresses on how to meet the rising demand of the medical sector, where technical textiles are used to the maximum. We are also searching avenues to reduce dependence on imports".