Coimbatore : In the background of successful meeting organised by the union textile ministry for engaging a common platform for connecting brands and SME textile and apparel manufactures, at Delhi Monday, two major textile bodies in the region proposed to organise one such first engagement meet in the city with brands and manufacturing units in Tamil Nadu.

Textile minister, Smriti Irani has organised the meeting, following appeal from the industry to help to connect with MNC 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, Indian Texpreneurs Federation Convenor, Prabhu Dhamodharan said.

Thanking Smriti Irani for the effort, he said that this will strengthen the Brands and SME connect and will help to improve the domestic sourcing and in turn help the sector to create more jobs.

The apparel clusters – Coimbatore, Tirupur ,Erode and Karur are suppliers of apparels to global brands and are capable of delivering best products at best prices.

In spite of the capabilities, due to a lack of a more professional connect between SME manufacturers and Brands, more than Rs. 6,500 Crores of apparel have been sourced last year from one country also (imported into India).

If all these apparels were sourced locally (from India), it would have created direct jobs for around 1.5 lakh people,he pointed out.

In view of this the Federation and Tirupur Exporters Association have proposed to organise one such engagement platform soon, Prabhu said.