Setting the industry up for a post-pandemic future, Gartex Texprocess India concluded on a fruitful note underlining the dynamic domestic marketplace and the opportunities it offers. Through five focused segments and the co-located Screen Print India and Denim Show, the platform brought together 145 exhibitors with over 300 brands and more than 800 products on display.

Gartex Texprocess India, the most comprehensive B2B exhibition on garmenting and textile machinery, fabric accessories and allied industries returned to Delhi with its first-ever post-pandemic edition in December 2021. The combined showcase of textiles and garment machineries, digital and screen-printing technologies and denim innovations and trends attracted 10,158 business visitors over its three-day course. The buoyant business atmosphere was further complemented by the visit of Additional Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Shri Vijoy Kumar Singh, who highlighted the focus of India government to formulate a scheme to incentivise manufacturing of textiles machinery in India leading to intense discussions on domestic collaborations and an optimistic outlook among the fraternity.

Re-affirming the potential of the Indian market in the post-pandemic scenario, Mr Adhish Aggarwal, Business Development Manager, Insight Print Communications Pvt Ltd said: “We have had many of our existing customers upgrading to the new TS55 machines and switching to TS100 machines from their traditional Chinese machines. These 2 boxes have certainly been a game-changer. There is a huge potential in the Indian market, with the Government also setting up textile hubs and sanctioning grants for the same.” The company showcased the new high-speed sublimation printer Mimaki TS55-1800 and an entry-level sublimation printer TS100-1600 by Mimaki, a renowned Japanese brand in textile printing industry.

First time exhibitor Felix Schoeller India also reported to have a good business response. Mr Pranav Vaswani, Director, shared: “We participated in the Gartex Texprocess India 2021 to promote our sublimation paper which is sold out as an S-RACE brand. This is our first time participating in Gartex and we had a pretty good response in these three days. It was great to find a lot of good quality conscious customers at this exhibition and has been a very interesting experience for us as we came across a lot of new customers, who we could introduce our products to. I think it is going to give us good business traction over the next one and a half years because a lot of people have become aware of our products, and we are very happy overall.”

Mr Bharath Subramaniam, Managing Director, Mehala Machines India Limited, also shared his experience as an exhibitor at Gartex Texprocess India 2021: “We had displayed our latest products in technical textile fabrics for protective wear, performance wear, workwear and bags. The platform proved to be really beneficial for us, we got really good prospects and we are happy to see customers from different parts of India converging at the exhibition. Overall, the response has been excellent.” He further shared that there is a huge scope for automation and that advanced technology in garment manufacturing will become the centrepiece leading to increased productivity.

Targeting the future of fashion through advancements in garment machinery, innovative fabrics, embroideries and trims, denim collections, as well as screen-printing technologies and its rising applications, the platform brought the textile value chain together through its dedicated product zones of Embroidery zone, Digitex show, Fabrics & Trims show. The specialty areas made product sourcing easy for its business visitors.

Screen Printing segment remains strong for textile printing industry
Screen printing plays a major role in today’s fashion industry and holds a prominent position among brands for high volume production. With technological developments in this space, screen printing has also made the fashion business more economical than ever. Showcasing advancements in this space with their entirely new line of ultrasoft binders, Mr Moulik Ranka, Director, Zydex Industries said: “It has been very refreshing to see and connect with old faces again after the last two troublesome years. We were very excited to launch an entirely new line of ultrasoft binders that allow expanding the pigment printing space to replace 30-40% of reactive type designs resulting in significant savings in energy as well as water. The show has been really good with excellent footfall and we are extremely pleased to have participated here.”

Distributors of USA-based company Stahls also reported a remarkable response from Indian buyers. Mr Harish Dharamsinh, Marketing Executive, Skyscreen International Pvt Ltd explained: We are the distributors of Stahls heat transfer films, vinyl, and heat press machines of Stahls for the Asia region. We also are the distributor of GCC cutting plotters and selling DTF printing machines along with ink, matte films, etc. Screen Print India has been remarkable in the post-pandemic scenario and provided us with a great response from the buyers.”

Denim Show: a major attraction at Gartex Texprocess India
One of the central attractions at the show, the Denim Zone with its unique art installation, a dedicated trend area and blended product showcases made waves among the buyers. The Denim show witnessed remarkable participation from 25 of India’s prominent Denim mills paving way for potential partnerships.

Asia’s largest denim producer, Jindal Worldwide Ltd reported to have received a great footfall of international buyers from the show. Mr Amit Jindal, Managing Director shared: “We have been getting great responses from the show year after year. This time we are surprised to see a lot of customers coming from outside of India like Peru, South America, Columbia, Bangladesh, Egypt and Turkey. So we really see that this show is going international and it is giving us a great business response.”

Mr Aamir Akhtar, CEO, Arvind Ltd said: “Unfortunately, the last two years we had to sort of take a brief break. Returning after two years, the show has been really amazing this time. The people here, the mood here, the sentiment here, the quality of buyers here; it is really very encouraging. It is amazing to see the general sentiment to be so positive and it is almost like setting a new direction for the industry.”

With business activity soaring and booking confirmations for the next edition starting during the show itself, Gartex Texprocess India’s Mumbai edition will be a must-watch event for the textile, garment machinery and fashion industries to source new products and ideas. Dates of the 2022 Mumbai edition will be announced in the coming months.

www.gartexindia.com.