A passage to India: wool industry's bold moves

Increasing underused early-stage processing capacity in India is a key goal set out in the roadmap developed as part of WoolProducers Australia's work around diversifying markets, with it unlikely that further expansion will occur until existing facilities are working at full steam.

Other key steps include growing India's profile as a sourcing destination for wool to help build market demand and sharing Australia's shearing and wool harvesting skills to strengthen ties between the two nations.

The long-term goal is to create the conditions that would encourage existing early-stage processors in India to expand and new ones to enter the sector.

The roadmap was last week showcased in India during a delegation of Australian wool and cotton industry representatives, the latest in a string of interactions centred around the natural fibres industries.

With India's Ministry of Textiles setting the goal of increasing India's textile exports to $100 billion by 2030, project proponents believe that the goal of increasing wool exports to India is more attainable than at any other time in recent decades.

Wool Industries Australia president David Michell said while there were no guarantees, he was optimistic that real growth was achievable over the next three to seven years.

"I would think it has the best chance it has had of the last 15 to 20 years," he said.

"The India-Australia relationship has had many attempts to get off the ground over the last 20 odd years, this is the first time I've seen the Australian government working so closely with the Indian government so that gives a lot more confidence than we've had for a long time.

"If you look at the issues that came out during the pandemic where supply chains were tested, stretched and broken in all sorts of ways, there is a definite move by the western brands to spread their risks and that falls straight into the lap of India.

"They already have an established industry, it's only 8pc of Australia's wool so it could very easily become 20pc."

Mr Michell said the investment required to grow India's market share of Australian wool exports was quite large.

"It's a complicated, multifaceted but what you can see in that India roadmap that Deloitte has pulled together is a way to make steps forward," he said.

"Now it's a matter of getting the governments to get behind it and give it a bit of push, and to get the commercial buys to say,' yes, it's a good idea'.

WoolProducers CEO Jo Hall said the industry had been looking at opportunities to work with India to upskill their domestic workforce in shearing and wool classing in the near future, helping build the relationship between the two nations.

"We're very keen to explore that and the possibilities there," she said.

"The trip to the Himachal Pradesh region was to gain an understanding from the Australian side about what we're dealing with, what conditions are like in India because we cannot transfer knowledge when we don't know what the base level of production and husbandry is.

"Now we will have to continue working with our Indian counterparts to determine the best way to target our skills transfer in those areas.

"One of the interesting things we learnt is that in terms of wool harvesting, 80pc of India's 73 million head clip is harvested using hand shears."

AWEX CEO Mark Grave said the most recent delegation, which involved a visit to the Bharat Tex textile exhibition, had received high level support from both countries' governments.

"I was impressed by the way that the program was put together, the high level of people we spoke to, ministers and industry leaders, who were speaking very positively about what they were looking for," he said.

"There are some short-term goals we can focus on, like sharing of skills... but long-term is certainly investment in processing, which is really looking at partnerships with countries that will support the expansion of wool in years to come.

"In previous times, it's just been industry to industry... on this occasion it certainly has a lot more momentum and the potential of that is huge, particularly as India is looking to triple their gross domestic product in the next five or six years."