It's a clear thumbs-down for the pessimists who had painted a bleak picture for the Indian textile industry in the post-quota regime.
But now, the question is will the Indian industry now focus on the US market or will it go more aggressively to develop its already bouyant market in the European Union?
In the first full year in the post-quota regime, India's textile sector not only clocked a 26 per cent growth in exports in dollar terms during 2005-06, it also managed to increase its market shares both in the US and the European Union markets – two of the major destinations of textile exports in the world.
According to a study, India has been able to register an increase in its share in the US market, with cotton clothing exports alone logging a 44 percent rise. The overall growth in Indian textile exports to US was 16 percent.
Meanwhile, the European Union too is emerging as a major export market for Indian textile products. India's textile exports have increased almost exponentially in the EU market – especially in the value-added segments like garments.
Spain, the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands are some of the countries which are emerging as fastest growing markets for Indian products. In fact, Spain has turned out to be the fastest growing market for export of Indian textile in most segments. Indian exports to Spain grew by 57 percent in value terms during April-October last fiscal as compared to the previous year.
The UK market, too, showed a 35 percent increase in Indian exports whereas a jump of 34 percent was recorded in exports to Germany and 20 percent to France.
And with European countries going ahead with their clampdown on Chinese textiles this year, it is likely that Indian textile exporters will be able to reinforce their position more strongly this fiscal.
Figures compiled by the Ministry of Textiles show textile exports from India during the penultimate year of the 10th Five-Year Plan (2005-06) fetched a handsome $17,007.52 million, against $13,496.78 million in 2004-05. In rupee terms, the exports increased to Rs 75, 365.52 crore from Rs 60,641.04 crore.
It is the readymade garments segment which did exceptionally well in the post-quota regime with a vibrant 32.42 percent growth in exports at $8,213 million from $6,202 million last year.
The US and the European Union markets emerged as high-growth areas for readymade garments in the last fiscal. Export performance of other made-up textile articles, too, were good with an yearly growth of 25.63 percent from $1, 838.59 million to $2,309.82 million last year.
Another area where India showed a distinctive advantage by being the major producer was cotton exports, which showed a growth of 33.35 percent to $2,822.14 million in 2005-06 as compared to $2,116.33 million earlier.
Export of special women's fabric from India notched up a robust 18.31 percent growth to $130.81 million ($110.57 million).
Carpet exports were another growth area, registering 36 percent growth to $1,057.05 million ($777.51 million).
The only area where the Indian industry's performance was not encouraging was man-made filaments and staple fibre segments. This, despite the fact that the world trade in textiles and clothing is largely based on synthetics.
The export of Indian-made man-made filaments exports were down at $871.47 million ($949.30 million). However, the export of man-made staple fibre showed a 4.11 per cent growth to $783.11 million from $752.21 million last year..
