July 17, 2006	Monday	Jumadi-ul-Sani 20, 1427

THE conventional textile has entered into a highly competitive market where enormous capital is required with less returns. In conventional textiles, the bargaining power in the value chain has shifted to the buyer. The supply market has become saturated.

In this scenario, an analyst assumes that such kind of business is not profitable and there should be a radical change in the technology. One can see business potential in the shift from conventional technology to ” technical textiles” whose global market is of $60 billion. It is in growth stage and yields high return on investment.

The term ‘Technical Textiles’ emerged in early 90’s when industrial experts segregated textiles on the basis of their end applications. Technical textiles refer to the application of textiles in relevance to their technical properties and performance rather than appearance or other aesthetic characteristics.

Following are some of the examples of technical textiles and their area of applications (Source: Technitex 2006):

Agrotech — agriculture, horticulture, forestry and aquaculture textiles.

Defencetech — weaponry, ballistic protections, projectile engineering.

Spacetech — astronaut gears, shuttle components, satellite components.

Buildtech — building and construction textiles.

Clothtech — technical components of shoes and clothing e.g., linings.

Geotech — geotextiles and civil engineering materials.

Hometech — technical components of furniture, household textiles & floor coverings.

Indutech — textiles for industrial applications – filtration, conveying, cleaning etc.

Medtech — hygiene and medical products.

Biomeditech — textile materials artificial implants.

Mobiltech— automobiles, shipping, railways and aerospace.

Packtech — packaging materials

Protech — personal and property protection.

Sporttech— sport and leisure.

Within these categories, there are hundreds of highly specialized products. In early years, traditional methods and materials were used to build products under these categories. Nowadays, new high performance materials are introduced to make such goods.

As conventional textile (fashion textiles) is no longer a very profitable business, the developed countries have shifted their focus on technical textiles. Technical textiles require high level of research expertise and it is a purely knowledge based business. The return on investment in technical textiles is hundred to thousand times higher than from conventional textiles and it comprises high value-added products.

Developing countries like India and China has already aligned their future targets in the footsteps of developed countries in this field of textiles. India has introduced a comprehensive plan of promoting ‘Technical Textiles’ in their latest textile vision. China is also in the process of entering into this market.

Unfortunately, Pakistan lacks potential in this field of textiles. Pakistani textile industry, financial institutions and the government organisations are constantly putting their 100 per cent focus on upgrading conventional textiles. This is done by giving huge subsidies to industries in terms of tax cuts, easy financing and different attractive packages. Though it is done at the expense of tax payers, the end result is not fruitful.

Numerous reasons are given for the poor performance. The main reason is that conventional textile is no longer a profitable business. It is saturated and highly competitive. Sooner or later, Pakistani textile industry has to shift to high value addition and undergo radical change in technology to be more profitable.

Following are the main issues related to technical textiles in Pakistan:

Technical textile contains products that are highly flexible and customized. That’s why in the developed countries majority of these products are manufactured in the SME sector. The SME sector has the ability and flexibility to respond to quick technology changes. Unfortunately, the Pakistani SMEs have no resources to initiate building of such products by themselves.

The monetary policies favour the big industrial set-ups. These industrial set-ups lack flexibility in their manufacturing, technology and processes. They cannot introduce new products especially technical textiles due to high complexities in corporate practices.

Banks and financial institutions turn a blind eye on technical and innovative aspects of the industry. They fear new experimentation of markets and its associated risks. They keep revolving their money in the existing markets.

There is a huge gap between academia and industry which must be closed by establishing stronger links with the industry. Otherwise the research done in the institutions would never benefit the industry. In case of technical textile, it is important to introduce new high-tech materials and processing techniques to develop high quality textile products.

For instance, on a conventional sock knitting machine, an idea can be propagated through research to knit a mesh for developing cardiovascular implant using specific bio-resistant material with certain mechanical machine adjustments. The result will be thousand time increase in the profit margin as compared to the business of knitted socks.

The government is doing the maximum possible effort to boost exports. However, due to supply chain constrains, it is next to impossible for Pakistan to make hi-fashion products for the developed countries (Europe and the US). In short, Pakistani garments industry could not meet the lead times demand of western fashion market resulting in continuously making and exporting low value and non- seasonal products with extremely less margins.

In case of technical textile products, this is not the case. Technical textile products are not seasonal and have no supply chain constrains.

Usually the buyers have fixed term contracts with suppliers for a particular product and the product rarely changes unless there is a new raw material introduced in the market. The supplier has the power in the value chain.

There is no research culture in the field of textiles in Pakistan. With only limited textile institutes producing only production managers for the industry, less focus is given on analytical approaches and research. Though textile is a major revenue earning source, the research budget allocated to this sector is nothing. Even the R&D subsidy given to garment industry results in the wastage of money without any promising outcomes.

There should be a centralised authority to manage research and development and provide resources to the relevant institutes to trigger research in technical textiles and other value adding areas.