Tiruppur, a hub for knitwear, boast of a Rs. 46,000-cr annual apparel business. But, all has not been well in Tiruppur for the past three years. Export growth is not up to the expected level, investments have been need-based, and there is a struggle to be price-competitive. Exports during April 2019 have crossed `4,400 cr which is a very encouraging sign. Besides, India now has an advantage after the United States (US) imposed tariffs on some products made in China, as many buyers and manufacturers were approaching India for textile products. India’s strengths were the raw materials that are used like cotton and man-made fibre including polyester.
India cannot compete on lowering labour costs. The focus should be on expanding schemes for technology upgrades and introducing more policies that incentivize apparel exporters to upgrade technology. Exporters must look to new and emerging markets. In such scenario, there is a big need to the industry to upgrade itself with the latest technological and other developments taking place worldwide. That is why for providing these under one roof Knit Show 2019 was organised recently in Tirupur.
Knit Show is a flagship expo brand owned by Knit Show Trade Exposition, Tirupur. Over a period of three decades, Knit Show has hosted various editions, and recently held its 19th edition from 4-6 August, 2019 at Velan hotel ground, Tirupur. Knit Show is India’s most comprehensive exhibition for knitwear machinery, fashion accessory, fabric and process show, with gateway to billion dollar knitwear hub. The show had more than 482 national & international participants, and was spread over in 2 lakh sq. feet area. Many companies from Europe, the US, China, Japan, Korea, Turkey Taiwan, and many other countries displayed huge variety of product at one place. The show was visited by more than 25,000 customers from all over India.
The show’s inaugural ceremony was presided by AC Eswaran, President, SIHMA. Inauguration was done by Dr. A Sakthivel, Vice Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council in presence of Raja M Shanmugam, President, TEA. Lighting of the lamp was done by Kuthuvilakku by Ahill S Rathinasamy, President – KNITCMA, TR Srikanth, President – TEKPA and MP Muthurathinam, President – TEAMA.
Guest of Honour for the event was S Nagarajan, President –Dyers Association, Ahill Nami, President – TIF, N Vivekanandhan, President – SIIMKA, C Sharavanan, President, Yash AT Ganeshan, Secretary from TIPDA, R Kalyana Sundaram, President – CEA, KP Govindasamy, President – TEKMA. At the end vote of thanks was given by H Krishna & M Mahendran organizers – Knit Show.
Over the years, Knit Show has acquired a vast clientele in the knitwear industry. Leading participants in Knit Show this edition were Sahara Technologies, Chola Industries, Unique Technologies, SV Engineering Works, The Empire Textiles, DCC, Golden Falcon, Lakshmi Chemex, Hitech sewing systems, Point Knits, Anush Textile Solutions, Impress Apparel Machines, Vizzac Laser, RGM Machines India, Image Printers, Garisol Textile Printing Chemicals, Cheran Machines India, SS Creations, SSS Machine Services, SkyKnit Equipment Company, Lakshmi Bio Chem, Rajdeep Clothing Company, Spoorthi Technologies, MHM Printing Machines, Manoj International, Sinteli Knitting Machines, Amma Colours, United Machines, Sri Hari Incorporation, RVR Machines and many others.
According Krishnan, Managing Partner, Knit Show Trade Exposition, “This is our biggest show in terms of space and number of participants. The industry is just showing the sign of revival. We are getting good feelers from the exporters and hope it will come back strongly. I am happy that most of the companies have displayed their latest technologies. The focus is on automisatiom and showing machines, which require less labour. Now the industry needs to invest in these news machines to face the growing competition from Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Veitnam. I am sure the show will provide them the solutions they are looking for.”
Exhibitors’ comments…
Vikram Saria, Aura Designs Limited
We have launched a T-shirt printer and have already sold three machines in Tirupur. It can print on white as well as dark garments. Unlike other digital technologies white is done by screen and CMYK by digital inks. Hence, reducing the cost of printing. We have got excellent response in last two days, there have almost 100 potential enquiries.
Digital is something which has been evolving over the years. Every two-three years something new has to come. We see this machine as good selling model for 2020 in Indian market. We have machines for sweater printing, shawl printing and recently launched socks printing. In India we are new, but have already sold 400 machines in China market. Also in Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh, South America, Peru, Pakistan, and many other countries.
Rafael de Matos,KTK
Ours is Portuguese company, which is just five years old. We have lots of orders from all over the world, and Tirupur is a market you can never forget. We are trying to mark our presence in Indian market since 2017 and have been participating in every edition of Knitshow ever since. KTK is a company which is not only looking to sell a product but to create a partner so we try to have a product with lots of durability and that is what we try to implement with our patents.
We have patents that increase the durability of the rotation of the machine, patent for movement of the printing head, and many others. So, that all ensures quality of the printing head. We already have 25 machines, and 20 more coming in Tirupur soon. People here are very friendly, interested to know more about our machine and it’s a market we see growing in future.
V Sudheer Nair, Cheran Machines India Pvt Ltd.
We are displaying same digital concept like last year. This time we are presenting multi head label transfer machine named Falcon and 6 station automatic fusing machine called Crown. We are getting good response for everything we have displayed. Such technologies can save labour and power, as instead of five six machines, customer can go for only one machine.
The Tirupur market is stagnant as of now. Normally in exhibitions we definitely get some business, but this time we have only got enquiries, which may materialize later. People are still surviving on their existing technologies and are not expanding much. However, in digital printing excellent enquiries are there. Besides, screen cum digital concept is picking up these days.
Kathiresan, Lakshmi Chemex
Silicone ink is our new product. Market is also searching for that. We don’t have digital inks but in future we are planning to do so. Trend wise silicone and PUs are coming in. In last few years industry witnessed demonetization & GST impact but now all these things have settled down so it’s going to be good now.
Slowly garment export market is growing and printing is in trend. As far as response at Knit Show is concerned, we got good numbers of enquiries, and all the regular visitors have been here. Last six months have been very tough not only for our industry but other industries also. But we hope 2019-20 will be good for everyone.
Vikas Kumar Agarwal, Silver Sun
It has been very nice and interesting show for us. Crowd has also been very good. Lots of people have shown interest in all our machines. One of the highlight has been elastic joining machine. Tirupur is an important market which is expected to develop a lot in future. The knit industry should also revive; we are looking forward to get very good orders after the show.
We have been working in Tirupur for last 15 years, our customer base is also very good as we are getting continuous repeat orders. Now our more concentration is on specialised machines. We are focusing on quality and customer satisfaction. When compared to Japanese brand, our machine has 30-40 per cent price advantage. We are displaying a flat seamer machine on which operators have done test and got satisfied. Now hoping to get good orders from this show.
Ponvel, RGM Machines India Pvt Ltd
We have added many new products like industrial fans, cooler, sky lights ad bus bar. We have displayed our new automatic pocket attaching machine, label attaching machine. Apart from this we are also selling other sewing and cutting machines. Overall, response at show is OK, no complaints. Most of the visitors are looking for automatic machines now.
This kind of technology is the future in Tirupur, as you don’t need skilled labour, increases productivity and it runs on both knits and woven. For such machines providing good after sales service is very important so we pay a lot of focus on that. Market in Tirupur is very slow for past six months.
Senthilkumar, Chola Industries
This time we have introduced rotary fusing machine named Spinner. It is working with principal rotary system two heater plates and six bottom plates. The machine gives three times more production, saves manpower and electricity. Different technologies are getting upgraded as in printing buyers want something special always.
The show is good as we had lots of enquiries, after meeting visitors we feel the market is little bit picking up. However, there is global recession, which is also there in Tirupur. We are expecting it to improve by 2019 end but somehow printing is doing better than other industries
Sabeer S, Sahara Technologies
ISAMU is a 100 per cent made in Taiwan brand. They are manufacturing everything from tools to all important components. There is no compromise in quality and they have wide range of sewing machines from interlock series, everything from manual to automatic. We are doing this brand for last two years only.
But previously they were doing OEM for many leading brands and now they are concentrating on their own brand. We are at par with leading brands in terms of quality, and price wise we were very competitive. We are getting good response from the Indian market, and this exhibition also gave us some good enquiries from Tirupur players
Sandeep Loke, Sanjali Impex
In India, we have stitches with one side seam but with our new technology we have no one side seam. There are very such few types of machinery available in India. It’s more like a seamless garment made with Santoni. The machine is available at a very reasonable cost.
Till now, Chinese were not successful in seamless but now they are also making machines, which are competitive to Italian machines. Tirupur is a very important market for us and we are looking for a local agent here and hope to do good in future
Sumit Som Nath Harjai, Sanj Textiles Pvt. Ltd.
Under Soloman we have made a new company called Sanj. We have Soloman brand for the socks knitting machine. Recently, we have added two more things to it. One is socks printing machine which has a plus point that in it they are using inks directly on garment, not through sublimation. We have just made the machine and have already sold three of them.
This machine can print on cotton, nylon and polyester. You can do number of prints with unlimited colours. We have also introduced shoe upper machine, which can also be converted into a normal socks knitting machine. Things are picking up with new arrival of socks with new look in India. Besides, we provide complete pre and post treatment machines required for cotton and nylon
Suresh Babu, SSS Machine Services
This time we are displaying screen printing machine especially for labels. Last year we displayed rotary printing machine but quality wise screen printing machine is better. It is made in China, and at the same time we can do three colours. We have also displayed sequins embroidery machine, six colur sequins, and chenille with sequin.
Now, trend is more towards value addition, and not flat embroidery. People are accepting Chinese machine now because the other machines are very expensive and cost of job work is also very less. Chinese machines quality wise are also very good now. We got a lot of enquiry for the new machine. We hope next month onwards market will improve in Tirupur
Serdar Uzun, Sulfet
We are happy with the response from Tirupur market. We’ve been selling machines here for last 10 years. In the beginning, we sold some machines but then we shifted focus on other countries. However, three years back again, we re-entered this market with Mr. Das from Golden Falcon. In last 10 years we have paid more attention to technical service and developed new machines as per customer’s feedback!
This year we have sold some more machines in this market. We are giving good quality machines at reasonable price, which give higher productivity and require less manpower. Our oval machine is the fastest in the world. This year, we are expecting more orders from Tirupur
R Shanmuganadhan,Wellknown Syndicate
This year we have got the new automatic pocket-hemming machine. This is actually the need of the market because labour is a big problem today. Just to de-skill the market we have come up with this pocket setter, which is going to be very economic. We are the authorised India agent for brand Rambow from China, which deals in most automatic machines.
From Wellknit, this time we are more focused on woven products, we have got button whole and button marker machine, which is a labour and time saving machine. This time we have concentrated to get machines which are already there in market with but with newer attachments. The show has been very good as we got good response for our products. The machines are very much affordable.
Andre Loffel, SignTronic AG
For our customers as well as our company, the constant change and the necessity to optimize the processes, lower the costs and improve the quality means that we have to search for new solutions. We believe in the future of screen printing – a technology procedures. And we are convinced that the key factor for your future success is the perfect screen.
We are a company located in Switzerland and started our journey in India sometime back with Spoorthi Technologies. This is my 1st visit to India and I realise that people are very interested in our technology. We are making customers aware about our offerings through Knit Show, so we will wait and see what happens after the exhibition. It doesn’t matter how many customers you have on the booth, you need the right ones. If we just have four-six customers who have the potential then the industry is great
S Boopathy, The Empire Textiles
This year we have displayed digital T shirt printing machine from AURA China. People have shown a lot of interest in this machine. In knitting we had been there for several years, so getting good number of enquiries. We are displaying a 17 dia 24 gauge circular knitting machine and one flat knitting machine.
Today, open-width machine are getting maximum sales but now tubular is in demand from the Jobworkers segment as it can get work throughout the year. However, market is little slow but it is showing some sign of improvement now and is not going downwards further. We have received good enquiries and some confirmed orders. For us the show was good
Kesava Moorthy, Hi-Tech Sewing Systems
This time show has been quite good. Presently, the market is slow but last 2 months has witnessed some movement in the Tirupur market and even exports are showing a positive growth of around. As a company we are providing automation solution from cutting till finishing.
This time we are displaying New CNC template sewing machine for Tshirt placket making from Winda China. We also have template-cutting machine for this. Apart from this we have displayed fabric inspection and finishing machine
