National and Global Aspects of India’s Textiles and Apparel Industry and Trade: An Overview

Abstract

The elimination of Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas is expected to create a new environment for world trade in textiles and apparel by vastly increasing the scope for developing countries to expand their exports and thereby creating employment in this sector. As a natural consequence, a study of the true competitiveness of the exportables of the textile and apparel items of India in the international market becomes essential in order to make an informed projection for Indian exports vis-à-vis others beyond 2005. We discuss the national or domestic aspects of the textile and clothing industry of India with special emphasis on the domestic policies affecting the structural and performance indicators of the firms in this industry. Further, we offer measures of competition among firms in an industry, such as the indicators of industrial structure and performance. It seems that the level of industrial concentration in the textile sector has gone up in the post-MFA regime.