With no concrete measures materialising despite industry officials holding two rounds of meetings with government, the beleaguered textile sector is now looking forward to a record cotton crop this season to bring some cheer.

Thousands of National Textile Corporation (NTC) mills workers too failed to find answers to the vexatious issue of reviving the 118 sick mills.

Some movement was, however, made in the launching of the Textile Upgradation Fund (TUF) and Cotton Technology Mission with India also getting a morale booster after European Union decided to drop the three-year old anti-dumping proceedings against unbleached cotton grey fabrics exports.

Overall textile exports during April-September fell below expectations, more so in the backdrop of a negative growth in cotton yarnexports. But garment exports maintained a forward momentum rising by 25 per cent during the first seven months of the current financial year.

Export growth of synthetic too was poor as the global economic slowdown had a major impact on the textile front with machinery makers too not escaping recession. There was large number of payment problems in the textile sector as it reeled in the financial crisis, largely due to build up of inventories in the absence of fresh orders.

It all started during 1997-end when the bubble of the south east Asian economy burst.

The south-east Asian region accounts for 45 per cent of India's total cotton yarn exports and it explains why spinning mills were put to a lot of problems.

Moreover, the mills were also affected by high raw material cost, especially cotton since cotton crop production had slid during 1997-98 crop year (October-September) due to unseasonal rains towards last year-end.

Even while cotton ruled at a four-year low in the global market, Indian spinningmills were forced to pay higher in view of the domestic shortage. These two factors compounded by low purchasing power of consumers put the whole industry in a fix. These led to problems on two fronts. First, banks were left with dues from mills and second, farmers payment was also held up especially at the start of the new year.