Business

'Coating, Printing Technology for Technical Textiles is receiving a lot of interest in India'

A.T.E. Enterprises was among the first machinery suppliers to move into technical textile technology, in India. Over the years, the company has been waiting for the industry to gain momentum. In an interview with Reena Mital, G V Aras, Director, A.T.E. Enterprises, believes the wait for the industry to mature is still quite long.

How was Techtextil India for A.T.E Enterprises?

This was probably the best Techtexil India. This edition attracted a lot of serious visitors, the decision makers, which was not so in the earlier editions.

The focus this time is a little more on technology. This was good as the investment climate is changing in the technical textiles industry. The industry is thinking of gradually moving away from commodity business and to shift into something different. The industry is still not clear what to produce in technical textiles. This time, we saw that visitors were very interested in the technologies on display, and also wanted to understand how products are manufactured.

So, you expect orders after the show?

In Ttechtextil, this does not usually happen, but I am hoping this time it might be different due to the kind of response that the show has received.

For A.T.E., which technologies received good response?

There was tremendous response in warp knitting technology, from Karl Mayer. The market for warp knit textiles is growing at a very fast pace. There is also a lot of interest in coating and printing technologies, as this enables value addition in technical textiles.

Zimmer introduced its machine for narrow fabric printing. This is quite a revolutionary technology, where the printing is done in one single process, the machine runs at very high speed, of 50 meters per minute, as compared to a speed of 5-10 meters per minute in the conventional machines. Coating technologies of Monforts and Lacom also generated a lot of interest.

The Indian market has a lot of potential, but demand lags…

Honestly, I do not see that changing very soon, we still have a long way to go. There is dire need for legislations making the use of these products mandatory in certain applications. From this perspective, we have a long way to go, there is a lot of interest in the industry, but people are worried about the small size of the market.

And in technical textiles, in some areas, production technologies are very advanced, churning out huge outputs, a problem, because where do you sell these products.

Is high cost of technology a deterrent to investing for the industry?

The problem is not just the cost of the equipment, but the small size of the market. And India does not have the competitive advantage to operate in the export markets, as this is not a labor oriented industry. We are not strong in the raw materials for technical textiles too.

To give an example, many wipe manufacturers in India, finding the Indian market to be a small one, moved into roll goods exports. But this then became an intermediate product, where margins are low.

The industry will grow when the domestic market starts consuming these products. Of course, in products such as diapers, the market has grown exponentially, but here, the industry has opted for low-cost Chinese machines.

Is there an opportunity for Indian machinery makers to cater to the domestic requirements, with relatively lower cost, but appropriate technology?

Some Indian textile engineering companies have moved in. There are some good Indian machines for coating, drying, etc. In fact, Zimmer has tried to bring down its costs to suit the Indian market, by combining Indian technology. But as I said, we still have a long way to go, before this market matures.