India plans to make carbon fibre in response to EU carbon tax

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Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd is the industry partner of the textiles ministry for this project. "With this, India will have its own technology and manufacturing units. The project will be completed in the next three years," the second official said.

Carbon fibre is a controlled item and is not available in the open market. Countries supplying carbon fibre can refuse to provide it at any given time, despite an agreement being in place, potentially disrupting defence projects. Carbon fibre also serves as a basic raw material for numerous technical textiles products.

The project is part of the National Technical Textiles Mission, started in 2020 to oversee various technical textiles activities. India exports technical textiles worth $2.5 billion, with plans to increase this to $10 billion in the next five years. The country's market share in the global textiles and apparel trade was 4% in the 2021-22 financial year.

Queries emailed to the textiles ministry did not elicit any response till press time. According to the latest data from the commerce ministry, textile exports totaled $30.96 billion during the April 2023-February 2024 period, down from $32.33 billion a year ago. India is the world's third largest exporter of textiles and apparel with a 4.6% share of global trade, and ranks among the top five exporters in several textile categories.

Exports are projected to reach $65 billion by FY26. The government has identified five key focus areas to strengthen India's textiles ecosystem. These include addressing skill gaps and infrastructure through initiatives such as PM MITRA parks, the production-linked incentive scheme, Technical Textiles Mission, Samarth and the National Handloom Development Programme.