Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Oct 26: Romesh Khajuria Chairman, Wool & Woolen Export Promotion Council (WWEPC), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India, today said that Australia should transfer their technology to the Indian wool growers for improving the quality of wool produced in India.
This was stated by him in a round table meeting at New Delhi with the members of Australian delegation in Ministry of Textiles. A high level delegation of Australian wool representatives are on visit to India from 24 to 27 October 2023.
During the interaction with the delegation Khajuria said that Indian woollen industry is consuming more than 130 million kilos of raw wool annually to cater domestic and export markets. About 90 million kilos wool is being imported by Indian Woollen Industry from different countries mostly from Australia, China, New Zealand and others. During 2022-23, India imported 13.5 million kilos raw wool worth US$ 134 million from Australia to cater the requirement of Indian industry of fine wool for manufacturing various woollen products for domestic and exports purposes.
The meeting was chaired by Prajakta Verma, Joint Secretary (Fibre), Ministry of Textiles, GOI. G S Bhatti, ED, Central Wool Development Board, Suresh Thakur, ED, WWEPC and senior officers from Invest India, MEA and Australian High Commission, New Delhi attended the round table meeting and deliberated how to enhance the quality and production of wool in India.
Delegation was headed by Dr. Richard Nail, First Secretary (Agriculture), Australian High Commission, New Delhi and Australian Wool Industry was represented by Ms. Jo Hall, CEO, Wool Producers, Dr Selwyn G Heilbron, Economist, Sam Collins from Deloitte, Harsh Mohan Puri, Director. Mark Graves and Jason Letchford, Senior Members of Australian Wool Classing and Shearing Industries joined virtually.
The objective of the delegation was to assess the potential of investment for domestic and diversified early stage wool processing in India as well as discuss workforce capacity building programmes.
Further, during the discussion Khajuria said that Indo-Australia Joint Working Group met earlier in March 2023 in New Delhi. This was second round table working for mutual cooperation in wool sector for benefits of both the countries. Khajuria stressed upon the Australian technology transfer to India for capacity building of our wool growers and early stage processing.
Khajuria also announced about his visit to Australia during 3rd week of November to see the technology being used in wool sector there so that a comprehensive draft can be proposed in forthcoming MOU between two nations for mutual benefits.
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