Business

Textiles Committee Signs MoU With Nissenken Quality Evaluation Centre, Japan

Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, and M/s Nissenken Quality Evaluation Centre, Japan have signed a formal MoU, with the aim of helping the Indian textile and clothing industry meet the quality standards and requirements for the Japanese market. The Union Cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi, in its meeting held on September 2, 2020 had given the approval for signing the MoU between the two organisations. The signing ceremony was presided over by Union Minister of Textiles and Minister of Women and Child Development , Smriti Zubin Irani on the Indian side and by His Excellency Yasumasa Nagasaka, State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Govt. of Japan from the Japanese side. The main objective of the MoU is to support the Indian textile industry in meeting Japanese quality requirements through testing, inspection and conformity assessment, training and capacity building, research and development, and consultancy. It is expected that the MoU will boost India’s exports of textile and clothing to Japan. Both the institutions have agreed to share and exchange relevant technical information and documentation on a regular basis and carry out activities relating to standards, quality assurance norms, joint research projects on testing, development of user friendly tools for dissemination of data to the industry and facilitate sourcing across the textile value chain, from both the countries. Speaking on the occasion, Smriti Irani highlighted the challenge relating to stringent quality standards for exports to Japan and expressed confidence that the MoU will help in creating awareness on the various quality parameters being sought by Japanese importers, and extending hand-holding support to the Indian exporters to adopt and upgrade their technology, and quality as required. She also spoke about the synergy in the working of the two organisations and expressed confidence that it will inter alia boost the technical textiles sector as well and improve sourcing from India. She also urged the Indian textile and apparel industry to make full use of the opportunity in furthering Indian interests. Speaking on the occasion, the Japanese State Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry, Yasumasa Nagasaka highlighted that India is a huge market for the Japanese industry and expressed confidence that going forward, there will be substantial development in the India-Japan trade relationship. India and Japan had signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in 2011 which facilitates import of garments from India to Japan at zero duty. Despite CEPA, the growth in trade in textiles and apparel between the two countries has been moderate. Japan is third largest importer of textiles and clothing in the world and India is the sixth largest exporter and there is huge untapped potential for trade between the two countries. It is in this backdrop, a high level delegation from Ministry of Textiles was mounted in February, 2019 with a view to enhance exports and co-operation in textile sector and to identify areas for optimising the benefit of CEPA. As an outcome of these developments, the Textiles Committee entered into negotiations with Nissenken Quality Evaluation Centre, Japan.