Coimbatore : With Chinese share in US Apparels started declining since 2018, the Indian Apparel clusters should take advantage of the situation and aggressively focus on this market, Indian Texpreneurs Federationh (ITF) said.

The 2019 witnessed around Rs.20,000 Cr market share loss for China in the Apparel segment alone and Post Covid, the declining trend is accelerating,. which may create a 10 billion US Dollars opportunity in US markets in the segment alone for other countries including India, ITF said Wednesday.

Stating that after the EU-Vietnam FTA, Vietnam’s duty-free access may create further pressure to our Apparel exports to the EU, ITF Convenor, Prabhu Dhamodharan, however said that India competing nations like Vietnam and Bangladesh all have a level playing field in the USA because all of these countries do not have an FTA with the USA as of now.

Due to Covid implications, the overall US Apparel imports dropped by 30 per cent in the first 7 months of 2020, while their import of Chinese Apparel dropped by 49 per cent. Moreover, the reports about recent US actions in terms of trade restrictions on Chinese Apparel and other products from one of the major textile regions – Xinjiang leads to a notion that it will accelerate the trend further.

“Soo, it’s the right time to step up efforts with US markets as a market diversification strategy,” he said and urged each and every textile enterprise in Tamil Nadu to explore US markets aggressively.

As many of the clusters in Tamil Nadu have demonstrated high levels of quality, consistency, on-time delivery, best sustainable
practices, Green manufacturing practices, empowerment of rural workforce, it is time for Tamil Nadu textile clusters to form an alliance; project their strengths and market it well to establish a strong Tamil Nadu textile sector and USA partnership as an alternative to China in the Apparel sector, Prabhu Dhamodharan said.