Japanese experts evaluating Textile Committee laboratories

Kolkata, May 12 (IANS) Aiming to increase India's textiles exports to Japan, the Textiles Committee has invited Japanese experts to evaluate its eight laboratories to ensure that they comply with quality requirements and various compliances for their markets, an official said here on Friday.

"The experts from Japan Textile Products Quality and Technology Centre (QTEC) are currently evaluating eight laboratories of the Textiles Committee. They have already evaluated four laboratories located in Bengaluru, Coimbatore, Chennai and Kolkata. The rest four laboratories which are situated at Ahmedabad, Ludhiana, New Delhi and Mumbai will be evaluated soon," Textile Committee' Joint Director K.S. Muralidhara told IANS.

"Experts are requested to assess the laboratories of the committee and provide suggestions to upgrade the testing facilities so that they can meet the requirement of the Japanese market," he said on the sidelines of the industry capacity building programme here.

Noting Japan imports 97 percent of its textiles requirements, Murlidhara said that out of this, China supplies 65-70 per cent of the market share while Bangladesh caters to 7 per cent.

"India's textiles exports volume to Japan was $0.37 billion in 2015-16 and our market share was less than one per cent," he said, adding that Japanese markets offer huge potential because they import more than what was India's textiles exports of $35 billion.

Japan imported worth $38 billion of textiles last year, he said.

In a bid to promote export of Indian textiles conforming to the requirements of textiles and clothing market of Japan, the committee, a statutory body under the Textiles Ministry, has entered into this MoU with QTEC.

Muralidhara said the experts would also assist the committee to prepare testing reports in Japanese.

As part of industry capacity building objective for export of textiles and clothing in compliance to the Japanese market, the Textiles Committee is organising such programmes at nine major textile clusters of India.

Toshiki Tasaka, Director of QTEC's Overseas Coordination Department and Kei Funaki, its ASEAN & South Asia Regional Manager, who evaluated Committee's Kolkata laboratory on Fiday, were present at the capacity building meet here.

"Laboratories of the committee focus on chemical testing. But Japanese buyers are conscious about colour fastness," said Funaki.

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