NTC to manufacture shirts and export

National Textile Corporation, the umbrella body that

manages the affairs of sick private sector textile mills taken over by the government, will soon enter the garment export market. The corporation’s first fully export oriented unit, based in Hassan in Karnataka, will start manufacturing clothes and shirts within six months. The unit will manufacture nearly 50,000 shirts a day. Instead of using indigenous cotton, for which India is famous, the Hassan project is likely to import all the raw cotton it needs. Since it’s located in a special economic zone, it can import without paying duties.

NTC has raised thousands of crores by selling off many of its prime plots in Mumbai, Bangalore and Coimbatore and targets to raise about Rs 5,000 crores this year through land sales. The corporation is about to return to retailing in a chic new avatar by modernizing its 100-odd Entyce showrooms as the state-run company looks to ride back to health and become an integrated textile and garment player. Also the company sees turnover rising to Rs 550 crores in 2009-10 from Rs 418 crores a year ago.