The Indian Texpreneurs Federation and the Federation and Tirupur Exporters Association on Tuesday proposed a meeting of domestic, MNC brands and organised retailers to create a platform with SME textile and apparel manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu.
The proposal was made in the wake of the successful meeting organised by the union textile ministry in Delhi on Monday for engaging a common platform for connecting brands and SME textile and apparel manufactures.
Textile minister Smriti Irani organised the meeting following an appeal from the industry to help to connect with MNCs and domestic brands and organised retailers to create one nationwide engagement platform with SME textile and apparel manufacturing units.
The meeting was attended by 30 brands and retailers from across India and was hugely successful. There was a good exhange of views regarding the challenges and opportunities, convenor of Indian Texpreneurs Federation Prabhu Dhamodharan said in a press release on Tuesday.
Thanking Smriti Irani for the effort, he said this would strengthen the brands and SME connect and help improve the domestic sourcing and in turn help the sector to create more jobs.
The apparel clusters - Coimbatore, Tirupur, Erode and Karur were suppliers of apparels to global brands and can deliver best products at best prices.
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In spite of the capabilities, there was lack of a more professional connect between SME manufacturers and brands. This gap led to over Rs 6,500 crore worth of apparel being sourced last year from one country.
If all these apparels were sourced locally, it would have created direct jobs for around 1.5 lakh people, Dhamodharan said.
In view of this, the Federation and Tirupur Exporters Association proposed to organise one such engagement platform soon, he added.