Ashima's Eurosoft range will offer fabrics that are 100 per cent cotton in contemporary colours and fabrics in tune with global forecasts. The company has three design studios in Ahmedabad, New York and Manchester which follow global trends in clothing to keep the company abreast of the most contemporary colour schemes and fabric weight groups in world markets.

Ashima has a capacity of around 16 million meters of khakies, out of which almost 8 million metres is exported and the balance sold in the domestic market.

"This year, we expect to sell close to 2 million tonne of the EuroSoft collection in the domestic market, Ashima's president operation, Atul Singh told the Financial Express.

"Although EuroSoft is a superior product with a lot of value addition, it is not going to fetch us additional revenue. The company proposes to offer value-for-money fabric to all leading brands for manufacturing exclusive garments reaching out to a wide customer base," Singh said.

The company however, does not propose to enhance its capacities further. "We are also not looking at the garment sector and want to stick to our core competencies of fabric manufacturing," he added.

The customer will enjoy benefits such as extra yield with wider fabrics and durability and cost effectiveness. Ashima's design studios in Manchester and New York employ Western talent to work online with its staff at home. "We will offer customers a range of services and offer them fabrics that will go into next year's fashions," Singh said.

Ashima's design studios are linked to those of US partner Cone Mills which are, in turn, connected to the systems of Cone's major customers such as Levi Strauss. Cone Mills, which initially bought over an 8 per cent stake in the company, has moved from sourcing just fabric to sourcing a large portion of its design work from Ashima.

Ashima reported a turnover of Rs 300.45 crore for the year ended June 1999 and a net profit of Rs 15.3 crore. It has a total capacity of around 65 million metres including 10 mn mts of denim, 10 mn mts of yarn dyed shirtings and 13 mn myts of circular knits.