NEW DELHI : Union Minister of Textiles, Commerce and Industry Shri Piyush Goyal said Coimbatore and Tirupur would become the twin engines of India’s textile export growth in the coming years.

He stated that Rs3 lakh crore worth textile products were exported last year, Goyal said the target was Rs4.25 lakh crore this year. “The textile export market would clock businesses to the tune of Rs8 lakh crore in a few years.”

Pointing out that the potential of the technical textile sector needed to be tapped, Piyush Goyal said the Centre would promote cotton and man-made textile products as well.

Referring to the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme to enable large investments in the textile sector across the Country, including in, the Minister said the Union Government was thinking of coming up with one more such scheme for the sector. He said India, which was haunted by the shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE) kits in March 2020, had now become the second largest manufacturer of PPE kits in the world. “This was after Prime Minister made a clarion call to the textile sector to start research and begin manufacturing PPE kits in the Country to become self-reliant.”Goyal said the Centre was now trying to ink the free trade agreement (FTA) with Israel, Canada, the UK and the European Union after finalizing the same with UAE and Australia. “This will help the Country attract huge investments and generate crores of job opportunities.”