The Hindu Business Line : China's success mantra in textiles: Stand by clients

The Chinese shippers offer of export trade facilitations in product flexibility, flexibility in sourcing and standing by the buyers in ironing out difficulties with the products they bought.

Coimbatore , Oct. 7

WHAT drives China to emerge more competitive in textiles? It is not pricing alone as one would be inclined to surmise.

In fact, its garment shipments in select categories are costlier than India.

The average import price in the US of China's garments is at least 50 per cent higher than that of India on certain categories of products.

According to Mr K.K. Jalan, an IAS officer who is Seceretary-General of AEPC, China's exports still assumed importance for the buyers in importing countries as the f.o.b. price alone is not the deciding factor.

Flexibility: The Chinese shippers offer export trade facilitations in product flexibility, flexibility in sourcing and standing by the buyers in ironing out difficulties with the products they bought.

"Give the buyer what he wants, either by producing in-house or by outsourcing it from others and once the buyer pays for the product, the shipper would take care of any difficulty the former encounters. This is the trade mantra that put China ahead," Mr Jalan said while participating at a symposium of knitwear exports held recently in Tirupur.

Perception factor: Another element is the `perception' factor of China among the global garment sourcing companies.

Many importing countries view that Chinese garment companies can offer `pre-production' facility with ease. The garment sampling from China would be at minimum cost.

The AEPC Secretary-General said the inadequate infrastructure, labour productivity and scale of operations are among the aspects that need to be attended to by India to achieve higher export competitiveness.

The symposium in which exporters, garment procuring companies and buying agents took part was held as part of the India Knit Fair for the Autumn/spring collection of 2006 currently underway in Tirupur.

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