# Opportunities Of Africa In Terms Of Global Textile Industry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOCkiD-AY2k

[00:06] Good afternoon.
[00:06] I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of our company Jersey to appreciate this opportunity from It May Society for collaboration between Gear Z and Indian It May Society to be a knowledge partner for this very important event.
[00:32] Before we begin this afternoon's panel discussion, in order to set the tone for this discussion and in order to provide the broader context for what is happening in Africa and what are the opportunities within the global textile industry, we have prepared a short presentation.
[00:51] The good news is that the textile consumption is on a long-term growth.
[00:55] Consumption of textiles in the world will be increasing from the current level of about 14 kilos to about
[01:07] 16 kilos per capita so this presents a great opportunity for all of us across the textile industry.
[01:16] Without much ado I would like to introduce the distinguished panel that we have and kick start the discussion.
[01:24] So ladies and gentlemen, we have nine panelists and I have the pleasure to welcome them.
[01:32] Mr. Harish Chandra, please.
[01:34] Good afternoon everyone.
[01:34] Now at the moment the global buzzword everywhere is Africa.
[01:41] So our plan is to take it me and it means skill set to Africa to help explore a myriad of possibilities to help cater to the whole market.
[01:59] Thank you, Mr. Shenker.
[02:03] I would like to now turn to Otto Melaku as this way who's the president of the Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and sectoral.
[02:07] Associations in Ethiopia and my question to him is, you know, what is the role of your chamber in facilitating FBI into Ethiopia nowadays?
[02:21] Africa is integrating.
[02:26] Africa is economically integrating through the African Continent Free Trade Area.
[02:32] So many countries in the world have come to Africa for the investment nowadays.
[02:40] Especially when you consider Ethiopia, from African countries, the most foreign direct investment is coming to Ethiopia.
[02:52] Thank you.
[02:54] Let me congratulate His Excellency Otto the Mecca for the reforms that your young Prime Minister has launched, a very dynamic Prime Minister in the Ethiopian continent, and I would like to.
[03:08] Congratulate your government for making Ethiopia as the preferred destination for FDI into the textile and apparel sector.
[03:15] Jerome, thank you very much.
[03:19] Yeah, since April 2018, there is a new original shipping political and economic reform being undertaken by our new prime minister, you know, in order to attract foreign investment.
[03:36] What we need is enough peace and stability; it is very important, and to bring peace and stability, now the political climate has to be more conducive.
[03:47] When we look at 2017-18, Ethiopia FDI is 3.7 billion U.S. dollars.
[03:56] It is the largest in Africa and the second largest effective to live led three countries, and the concentration, when we see, is the largest share of this.
[04:09] FDA is in textile and garment.
[04:14] This is what I want to contribute.
[04:19] Well, thank you, your excellency.
[04:21] You are not only a diplomat but you are an economist fully equipped with facts and figures about your country.
[04:29] You know, congratulations.
[04:32] You know, let me now turn to artists Ellie she'll Emma, whom I have known from 2002.
[04:38] So I would like to ask you a tous le she about what role your instrument institution has been playing.
[04:44] And if you could please share the textile vision for the audience here.
[04:51] First of all, my country, we have developed policies and strategies.
[05:00] National policies and strategies in different sectors.
[05:08] When you look at all these policies and strategies, they have...
[05:14] Given top number one priority for textile and garment manufacturing sector.
[05:25] So we have adopted an industrial strategy policy which has emphasized the textile and garment sector as number one priority as I mentioned.
[05:39] Thank you, Otto Silesia.
[05:42] I would like to turn to Mr. Venugopal.
[05:45] Your program is playing a crucial role in building trade relations between India and especially the East Africa, you know, facilitate investment, transfer of Indian knowledge and expertise.
[05:58] Would you please share your recent experiences with us with the audience?
[06:05] The one thing that we as an agency do is participatory design, so right from the time we looked at what...
[06:14] The priorities were the first document that came out, and I quote oscillation.
[06:22] When he said that the 2016 strategy for Ethiopia's textile and apparel industry that came out is their strategy, what we did is we help them get there.
[06:32] What we did is we convened along with him the stakeholders.
[06:38] What we did is break it down into priorities: one is transfer of knowledge to his embedding, transfer of knowledge with change of behavior.
[06:47] Three is getting prioritization hinder.
[06:51] Thank you, thank you very much.
[06:54] I would like to request Mr. Mahim Jen to throw some light on how his Institute or what role is his Institute playing in terms of ensuring standards in the Indian engineering industry to ensure that what they export is really world-class, the harmonization.
[07:17] Of the Indian of the national or the international standards is also very important when it comes to cross-border trade.
[07:28] So if this is there we have a standardization, it will certainly help in the government of India's campaign of Make in India and it would also help in actually strengthening the international the textile and the industry across the globe as well as in India.
[07:46] Thank you.
[07:47] Thank you, Mr. Chen.
[07:50] We are quite fortunate to have the representative from Indian Exim Bank, Mr. Karthik.
[07:55] So, Mr. Karthikeyan, would you please highlight some avenues, funding avenues for textile projects that your institution makes available?
[08:04] Coming to Exim Bank's role, I think most of you are already aware the Exim Bank, this affects body institution financing India's.
[08:17] International trade well now the niche program of Exim Bank for international investments is overseas investment finance program.
[08:29] Basically this since our inception we have funded the projects more than 600 joint ventures into overseas covering 78 countries including African countries.
[08:40] So these are the funding options from Exim Bank for the cross-border transactions especially from the Indian side.
[08:50] Thank you.
[08:54] Thank you, Mr. Karthik.
[09:01] Let me ask Mr. Deep Singh who's the deputy CEO of a large industrial conglomerate the Sat Logic group to highlight what would motivate his company to invest in Africa.
[09:14] The only criteria which we look at is it.
[09:18] Should make economic sense now it is a global village what we call the world.
[09:24] And wherever it makes economic sense we would like to invest in number one.
[09:30] Number two, this economic sense should be sustainable.
[09:32] We should have a right skill set available.
[09:38] This is another thing which we look at as the availability of the resources, manpower resources.
[09:44] And the third, we look at the stability of the government.
[09:49] So these are the things which we primarily look at while we scout for the investment avenues outside India or within India as well.
[09:58] Thank you, Mr. Deep Singh.
[09:59] I think it's a very clear message for the policymakers to address.
[10:03] At the end of this session, I mean, we come back to our constituency that's the textile machinery.
[10:08] So I have taxpayers machine works represented by their director, Mr. Himanshu Doshi.
[10:18] With his colleague Mr. Sang-gui, you know, could you please share your thoughts on, you know, expanding your machinery or your spares business to Africa?
[10:30] What opportunities do you see and how equipped you are to take advantage of that?
[10:35] Thank you, Mr. Saudi.
[10:37] I'll fill in for Mr. Joshi.
[10:40] There are three companies basically: Spare Machine Works, More Ground Textile Machines, and Endurance Wear Solutions.
[10:47] And they have been catering primarily to winding solutions for stitching, embroidery, and other kinds of threads and yarns in the textile as well as in some other industries.
[11:03] From what I understand, they've been working in Ethiopia itself for the last probably 20 years providing different kinds of solutions to the industry out there, and their experience so far has been very
[11:19] Good, they've, I mean, so which means that they're looking at expanding or investing much more time, effort, and money in the African countries.
[11:32] And we believe that it may, Africa will provide a very nice opportunity for better exposure for such companies to the other countries and other economies in Africa.
[11:46] Thank you, Mr. Dough Shilling.
[11:48] I think that was a very pity remark, and I'm sure he was also speaking on behalf of the industry that it's said it's a great continent to do business with, and there are opportunities for other manufacturers of textile capital goods as well as consumables and personal.
[12:06] So India ITME society signed the MOU with the representatives from Ethiopian Chamber of Commerce and sectoral associations.
[12:17] The event also saw the launch of a brochure and the website of.
[12:20] The event mementos were exchanged as a gesture to forge a new era in the development of textile industry in Africa.
[12:35] A video presentation of the event I TME Africa 2020 was also shown to the participants.
[12:45] The pre-event to I TME Africa saw an exhibition to showcase the offerings by the textile fraternity for participants from different countries.
[12:53] A new dawn is on the horizon for ITM II Africa 2020.
[12:59] Prosperity for Africa through textile technology.
[13:08] A very hearty welcome here this morning at our prestigious launch of ITM Africa 2020.
[13:16] India today stands as the second largest textile industry in the world.
[13:20] Africa at
[13:23] The moment is a continent where there's a huge growth and overall global focus.
[13:29] For it, me Africa 2028 me society was able to narrow down and partner with ATO PR to host our event in 2020.
[13:42] Today, with India's strengths in textiles and textile engineering industry, we are well positioned to partner with Ethiopia to facilitate the industry through the sharing of knowledge and technology.
[13:54] The theme of the show happens to be prosperity for Africa through textile technology.
[14:01] This show is supported by the Ministry of Textiles by the government of India, by the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, Ethiopia Textile Industry Development Institute, and International Trade Center as our trade and investment partner.
[14:21] Ethiopia happens to be the home of the
[14:24] African Union and has potential to be the Gateway to bring prosperity to Africa through textiles and textile engineering products because of good connectivity and infrastructure and logistics.
[14:38] We are hoping to welcome participants from right across the rest of Africa.
[14:44] We see a strong potential from the eastern African countries Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda.
[14:51] You can de this global event is born of friendship, aspiration, and goodwill.
[14:58] It me Africa 2020 is the right time and the right place to aspire to compete and to explore.
[15:08] Thank you, thank you, Mr. Harrison Girl, for sharing your vision and your leadership in taking the India I TMS society to futuristic goal.
[15:24] It is very
[15:30] Interesting that we are together taking steps towards growth India itne society.
[15:42] Along with the ITM II Africa event, the society is also progressing from not only the textile engineering but also the complete solutions from the raw material to the fiber, the products, the textile fabrics, accessories, machineries, financial solutions, and so the society can be instrumental in providing a one-stop solution for the textile segment of India and Africa.
[16:19] Now request to hear from our chief guest Mr. Siletti Lima the launch of this program today is.
[16:31] Very unique for us, and I'm very happy to see signing of Memorandum of Understanding to make similar of collaboration and partnership within their area of specialization.
[16:53] I believe this is the type of technology transfer, know-how transfer, not only in terms of machinery and equipment, but knowledge is very critical and very important.
[17:07] So we are very advantageous to take the lesson from India Atma society, and I believe that our chambers will take forward such type of initiative in the future as well, not only in Ethiopia but to the rest of Africa.
[17:26] So thank you so much, and see you in eto Pia in your capital city.
[17:30] I thank.
[17:34] You very much.
[17:37] Mr. Seamon, you would want to take over this part.
[17:39] Thank you so much.
[17:45] Seema, it is a great privilege and honour for us to be here today on this historic event.
[17:52] We want to bring this event to Africa with the big surprise, and we want to bring the strength of India and opportunity of Africa on this platform in 2020.
[18:07] Textile, as you know, is the backbone of industrialization on which Africa is crying.
[18:12] On the crying need of Africa, and you have a very good competitive advantage in this sector that you can more exploit in the continent.
[18:24] So Ethiopia is the fastest growing country in the continent.
[18:28] We have a very clear, you know, focused target of being an...
[18:36] Industrial industrial hub of the continent within the coming five, ten, twenty years.
[18:40] So textile is going to serve that path with a very support and collaborative support of India.
[18:52] And I would like to thank you again the ITM in society and its leadership.
[18:57] Thank you so much.
[18:57] [Applause]
[19:00] [Music]