Textile company owners in Karur hope Frankfurt fair will boost exports

FRANKFURT : The manufacturers and exporters, who have set up stalls at Heimtextil, the annual Textile Fair which is being held in Frankfurt in Germany, expressed hope that the fair would help them fetch more orders for home textiles in 2024-25.

The fair, which is considered as world’s largest textile fair, is held every year in the second week of January in Frankfurt. The exhibition, which opened on Tuesday, will close on Friday.

According to sources, more than 3,000 textile manufacturers and wholesalers have displayed their products in this exhibition. Of them, 448 textile manufacturing companies are from India. Sixty-nine textile manufacturing companies from Karur and 135 companies from Panipat were among those participating companies. Karur exporters have surpassed last year’s participation of 62 companies.

The participants hope that the show will spur growth as the show comes amid a slowdown in the home textile industry over the past 18 months due to global economic downturn.

“We get a steady stream of quality visitors comprising wholesale and retail merchants and agents across Europe, the U.S., and others. The enquiries are better than last year. It gives confidence that the 2024-25 year will boost exports,” said P. Gopalakrishnan, President of Karur Textile Manufacturers and Exporters Association, who has set up a stall at the fair.

He told that the annual fair invariably fetched at least 50% of export orders for Karur-based textile units. The average exports from Karur hovered around ₹6,000 crore a year. However, the volume of exports was not robust in 2023-24 due to the impact of the global meltdown. Most of the exhibitors from Karur had received a record number of visitors during the current fair.

The quality of enquiries would make a positive impact on overall exports from Karur in 2024-25, said Mr. Gopalakrishnan, who is the Chairman of Handloom Export Promotion Corporation.