Happenings

 Inception Workshops

Theme-1:

“New EU-GSP: Implications on Textiles and Clothing Sector”

 Theme-2:

“Geographical Indications Act under TRIPS: How Beneficial to Indian Textiles & Clothing Industry?.

Textiles Committee, the Tier-I partner in collaboration with UNCTAD is organising inception workshops at major textile clusters as part of implementing the programme “Strategies and Preparedness for Trade and Globalisation in India for Textiles and Clothing Sector”. The objective of this stakeholders’ consultation is to reach agreement on national trade development goals in the sector and plan to achieve them. These workshops are being organised with the active participation of the industry stakeholders such as textiles and clothing manufacturing associations, trade and exporters associations, service providing organisations, textile design and research institutes, civil society organisations and media. These workshops are the launching pad for sharing of experience and recording concerns of the stakeholders regarding trade-related issues and evolve works plans for the programme. Further, these workshops are a platform for government-private sector interaction for policy analysis and feedback.

These themes are taken up for the first six months and eight workshops are planned in various clusters of the textile industry across the country.

Place Region   Date Brochure List of Participants Proceedings Main Concerns Photographs
Bhubaneswar East  17th Feb., 2006 Brochure- Kolkata List of Participants - Ludhiana Proceedings - Ludhiana Concerns - Ludhiana Photographs - Ludhiana
Kolkata East  27th Dec., 2005  Brochure- Kolkata List of Participants - Ludhiana Proceedings - Ludhiana Concerns - Ludhiana Photographs - Ludhiana
Ludhiana North 8th Oct., 2005 Brochure- Ludhiana List of Participants - Ludhiana Proceedings - Ludhiana Concerns - Ludhiana Photographs - Ludhiana
Bangalore  South  2nd Sep., 2005 Brochure- Bangalore List of Participants - Bangalore Proceedings - Bangalore Concerns - Bangalore Photographs - Bangalore
Ahmedabad  West  30th Aug., 2005  Brochure- Ahmedabad List of Participants - Ahmedabad Proceedings - Ahmedabad Concerns - Ahmedabad Photographs - Ahmedabad
Hyderabad  South  10-11th Aug., 2005  Brochure- Hyderabad List of Participants - Hyderabad Proceedings - Hyderabad Concerns - Hyderabad Photographs - Hyderabad

Background    

There has been paradigm shift in the international trade rules under the WTO regime. The trade and industry are not fully aware of the implications of the changing multi-lateral trading environment. The poorer segments of the manufacturing and trading community have been the most affected groups. It is therefore, necessary to create awareness about the new trade rules and regulations under vogue for making the trade and industry competitive in the international market. To facilitate and support this capacity building, the Government of India, UNCTAD and DFID/UK are jointly implementing a five-year programme titled “Strategies and Preparedness for Trade and Globalisation in India”

The project aims to strengthen human and institutional capacities among stakeholders that will support and sustain a more equitable process of globalisation. It will facilitate building capacities on trade competitiveness in selected sectors and regions.

  Objectives

The activities are focused on strengthening human and institutional capabilities of stakeholders, to take better-informed decisions, and formulate strategies with a greater level of understanding of the impact of the opportunities from globalisation. The objectives of the programme are broadly classified as follows:

  Programme Activities

The programme will work through a network of stakeholders consisting of private sector, civil society organizations, sector bodies and institutions dealing with trade related issues besides, the government at all levels. Textiles Committee has been chosen as the tier-I partner of the programme while the stakeholders who have a better say in each sector of the industry will be acting as the tier-II partners.  The tier-II partners will include all institutions, associations that have links with trade issues in that sector and have the potential to represent the interest of the weaker and decentralized segments of each sector. The export promotion agencies such as TEXPROCIL for cotton textile sector, AEPC for apparel industry, ISEPC for silk, WWEPC for woolen sector etc will necessarily be the tier-II partners for implementing the programme.

The tier-I and tier-II partners will do the following:

  1. Identifying specific gaps in information available on important trade issues at sectoral, state and local levels.

  2. Assisting the stakeholders for capacity building activities.

  3. Dissemination of information related to international trade policy and market developments, trade related information/materials.

As part of these activities, the tier-I partner is responsible for organizing workshops/seminars at important textile clusters of the country with the support of tier-II partners which includes stakeholders from all sectors of the industry, getting feed-back information, conducting trade related research, hosting of website, assisting the stakeholders in capacity building activities etc.

Sectoral Workshops

The sector level workshops are focused on the inputs/feed backs received from stakeholders of the industry at the inception workshops. The purpose of these workshops is to address the sector specific needs and gaps between government policies and concerns of the stakeholders so as to strengthen the Indian Textile and Clothing industry for its trade competitiveness at all levels of trade.

Tier II Partners

The programme would be implemented by Textiles Committee (the Tier-I partner) with the active participation of the stakeholders of the industry which act as Tier II partners. The Tier II partners would include all such institutions, associations and other stakeholders that have links with trade issues in the textiles and clothing sector and have the potential to represent the interests of the poor.  Other regional/state institutions having sector specific mandate or engaged in relevant research shall also qualify as Tier-II partners under the programme for development as Centres of Excellence.

The Tier-II partners are: