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Chinese equipment can be attractive only if the whole project is designed for Chinese machinery

, Coimbatore , Dec. 6

THE apex textile body Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) has favoured technology transfer and joint venture investment from overseas machinery manufacturers.

Participating in the opening session of the two-day German textile machinery symposium, sponsored by the German engineering federation VDMA here today, the SIMA Chairman, Mr S.V. Arumugam, pointed out that the post-quota regime had brought new investments in textiles and garment production triggering demand for textile machinery. The capacities of domestic units, especially the spinning machinery manufacturers, are fully booked for the next two years. Dwelling on the current dilemma faced by the domestic textile manufacturers over the choice of the machinery and their technology, the SIMA chief felt that the Indian industry needed hi-tech machines at reasonable cost and without certain automations like auto doffer or link coners. The machinery imports are expensive due to transaction cost and customs duty and more so in the case of European technology.

Mr Arumugam said it was felt that Chinese equipment can be attractive if the whole project is designed for Chinese machinery but it may not be so if the machinery are retrofitted with European or Japanese components. Speaking on the occasion, the Deputy Chairman of the Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council (Texprocil), Mr Prem Mallik, said the textile industry was concentrating on intermediary raw material production in textiles such as yarn/plain fabrics. But now it is time to focus on newer products and their variants with value addition which would call for induction of newer machinery and services.

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