The Southern India Mills Association (SIMA) and Texprocil have condoled the demise of noted industrialist Karumuthu T Kannan in Madurai on Tuesday.
Kannan’s demise is a great loss to the textile industry. He was very proactive and always highlighted the issues the industry was facing,” said Ravi Sam, president of SIMA.
Kannan headed SIMA from 1990–1992 and Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) from 2000 to 2002.
He took over as the president of SIMA when textile mills were no longer required to have a license to expand or set up new mills. He focused on improving labor productivity by introducing scientific work methods and took the initiative to introduce audio-visual aids in several regional languages for the benefit of textile mills across the country. The concept of a dedicated Technology Mission on Cotton was mooted during his tenure.
According to SIMA, the industry was plagued by challenges such as imposition of anti-dumping duty on yarn by the European Economic Community to reduce yarn imports from India, which the association successfully represented at the highest level.
At Texprocil, he was instrumental in commissioning a study by McKinsey on the success of cotton textile exports in the post-quota period ie post 2004. During this period the council commissioned the first study on benchmarking the cost of production of cotton textiles in India vis-a-vis competing countries which was widely accepted by the government and industry as providing deep insight and led to an increase in the import of bedlinen from India. successfully neutralized the EU’s repeated attempts to impose anti-dumping duties on Subsequently, the Bedlinen case became a landmark decision in WTO jurisprudence. Texprocil said, “He was a visionary leader.”