On 28 August, with over 70 guests from industry and the specialist press, the Hohenstein Institutes celebrated the official opening of their second representative office in India in Tirupur, which has been in operation since May.
The town, in the state of Tamil Nadu, is at the heart of one of the main centres for the Indian textile industry. Several thousand, mostly medium- sized, businesses are located within a radius of a few hundred kilometres.
With growth rates easily in double digits, and a steadily increasing proportion of products going for export, the textile industry is one of the driving forces behind the impressive development of the Indian economy.
One of the consequences of the increasing focus on exports is that the Indian textile companies want to, and have to, match the global competition in terms of quality. An objective benchmark for measuring their success comes in the form of internationally recognized certification by independent test bodies.
In the field of testing textiles for harmful substances, the Oeko-Tex Standard 100, which the Hohenstein Institutes helped to develop at the start of the 1990s, is now the main certificate worldwide for verifying that textiles are not harmful to health. Many German and European customers now make compliance with the Oeko-Tex criteria an essential prerequisite before they will even enter into negotiations with potential suppliers.
The Hohenstein Institutes, the official representatives of the International Oeko-Tex Association in India, set up a representative office in Mumbai about 18 months ago. The rapid development of its business activities and the desire of many customers for more local points of contact led to the opening of an additional office in southern India.
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