Textile body honours RIL ED

Nikhil R Meswani, executive director of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), on Sunday was conferred an honorary membership at the eighth international and 60th All India Diamond Jubilee Textile Conference hosted by the Textile Association of India.

The membership medal and certificate was presented to Meswani by Shankersinh Vaghela, minister of textiles, government of India, in the presence of R K Dalmia, chairman of the Diamond Jubilee Conference.

In his speech, Meswani expressed his gratitude to the association for conferring on him the prestigious membership and making him the third member from the Reliance family to be honoured, after the founder chairman Dhirubhai Ambani and the present chairman Mukesh D Ambani.

"We have to continuously evolve processes that will create compelling value in the entire value chain. I would call for transformation in the areas of information technology, market intelligence, innovation and integrated operations," he said.

He also expressed his wish to place India among the top five textile consuming nations.

Meswani traced the history of Reliance from a textile company making polyester in 1982 to its current interests in the entire petrochemical chain and new economy businesses, and emerging as the world's largest producer of polyester.

Speaking about the opportunities ahead, Meswani said, "The Textile Association is celebrating its diamond jubilee year at an appropriate time. Just 26 days from now, the textile industry will witness a new dawn. Quotas, hampering the growth of the Indian textile industry, will end. This will open up new markets for the Indian textile industry."

Referring to the global textile trade, he stated that while India has just three per cent share of the global textile trade, China cornered a big 20 per cent of the total trade.

India should make use of its low-cost structure and efficient labour force to capture a bigger share. This in turn will generate 40 per cent more jobs, he said.

Meswani urged the industry to come out of its incremental mode of thinking and to compete on value and not on price. Indian textile companies have to become fast, focused and flexible to capture the incremental market, he said.