According to leading exporters of garments and other textile products, India generally caters to the lower segment of the market and do not make much impact in the upmarket where fashion and consumer taste play a major role.

In light of severe competition in the market, a new approach needs to be adopted to make further inroads into the international markets particularly in high value products segment with special features like care properties, wrinkle proof and fire proof.

In this context, exporters mentioned that Japanese manufacturers advertised brand names of products having special features which naturally command higher prices than the normal textiles and garments. InIndia, the textile research associations could be utilised to develop qualities or items with special features.

The major problem with Indian exporters was that they did not have much knowledge about the changes in fashion trends abroad because they did not have any tie-up with the international institutions.

Fashions change very often and the product needs to be changed to keep abreast of the trends. The industry should be in a position to switch over to new products of different features to sustain demand.

At a conference of leading exporters of synthetic textiles, the synthetic and rayon textiles export promotion council chairman Ganesh Kumar Gupta said that Indian exporters must have the quality and pricing of products to compete in global markets and this needs to undertake a lot of corrective measures.

The challenge is to project India as a reliable supplier of quality products. In 1998-99, exports of synthetic textiles fell short of the target of US dollar 1200 million and amounted to only USdollar 967 million, a decline of nearly 5 per cent in US dollar terms as compared to that of the previous year.

On future outlook, exporters said that the price trend in overseas market would likely to remain flat mainly due to the sluggish growth in world demand coupled with excess productive capacity in many exporting countries.

Citing some recent developments that adversely affected the export trade, they said that the initiation of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations by European Commission against import of polyester textured yarn from India coupled with unmatchable price competition from South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Taiwan had dampened the growth in exports.

The present setback in exports, though created certain difficulties, exporters felt that the industry has the potential to surge its exports particularly through modernising its large textile and garment manufacturing units and through enlargement of marketing network based on E-commerce and Internet.