Dubai is set to become an international focal point for the rapidly expanding textile industry, a multi-billion-dollar business employing millions of people across Asia and showing major development in the Middle East, says events expert Streamline Marketing.

Streamline announced that a new annual event being launched next March, Textile Expo Dubai, would bring together leading manufacturers and thousands of industry decision-makers from the Indian Subcontinent, Africa, the CIS countries and the Middle East.
The creation of this important new shop window for the region’s textile industry comes as manufacturers are preparing to make massive investments in modernisation to meet the considerable challenge of Chinese competition with the abolition of trade quotas in 2005.
The value of textiles to the region is most vividly highlighted in India, where textile and garment exports are expected to jump from around $13.5 billion in 2003 to $50 billion in 2010.
In the Middle East, clothing and accessories exports amount to $11 billion a year, and a $54 million Textile City being built in Dubai will add to the emirate’s status as a major trading hub.
Organised by the UK-based XPO Events/Turret-Rai in collaboration with UAE-based Streamline Marketing, Textile Expo Dubai will take place from  March 20 to 23, 2005 at Airport Expo Dubai. Occupying 25,000 sq m of exhibition space, it will be the biggest event of its kind in the region.
Held under the patronage of Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE Minister of Finance and Industry and Deputy Ruler of Dubai, the dedicated textiles machinery and accessories show will be a one-stop shop for decision-makers within a wide range of businesses. These include textiles and fabrics, fibres and yarn, leather goods, shoe manufacturing, home furnishings, textile dyes and treatments as well as textile recycling and waste management.
Exhibitors from more than 15 countries have already signed up for the event which will attract visitors from the key textile markets of the region including Iran, Pakistan, Egypt, Syria, Bangladesh, India, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Africa and the CIS.
Running alongside the exhibition will be a major international textile industry conference, and the organisers are now asking prospective speakers to send in their paper proposals.
“The Middle East is now ranked fourth in the world league of fashion and clothing accessories exporters, accounting for almost 5.5 per cent of the global trade,” said Nick Webb, director, Streamline Marketing. “In India the garment industry is the country’s biggest industrial employer, providing jobs for approximately 38 million people and boasting 28,000 exporters of readymade clothing. 
“Figures such as these indicate the need to bring a specialised event closer to home for the region’s textile and leather goods manufacturers and the response we have so far received from individual exhibitors has been very encouraging.”
The choice of Dubai to host the exhibition underlines the Emirate’s status as a top-class international event venue. “It is a much cheaper and hassle-free alternative to Europe, where security concerns and visa procedures have become more complicated,” said Maria Avery, exhibition director, XPO Events/Turret-Rai. “We picked Dubai because of its proximity to key textile markets in the area as well as its world-class facilities, huge range of affordable accommodation and easier visa regulations.”
Valued at $2.4 billion, Dubai’s textile industry has played a critical role in the Emirate’s economic development, and is now the second largest contributor to Dubai trade, including exports and imports. In Jordan, garments topped exports in 2003, accounting for 33.6 per cent (JD 477.9 million) of total exports.
In Pakistan, the garment and textiles industry contributes more than 65 per cent to total export earnings, and by next year annual exports are expected to reach $10 billion. Sri Lanka’s textile and apparel industry is the biggest employer in the manufacturing industry, and the country’s top export earner. In 2001 it supplied 53 per cent of the country’s total exports and accounted for 69 per cent of its industrial exports.
In Bangladesh, the textile and apparel industry employs 50 per cent of the total industrial workforce and contributes 9.5 per cent of the country’s GDP, as well as 77 per cent of total exports. In 2001-2002 the clothing sector alone generated $4.6 billion in foreign exchange.
In Egypt, the textile and clothing industry is the cornerstone of the country’s industrial and economic infrastructure, employing 400,000 workers - not including cotton farmers. 
Uzbekistan is the world’s fifth largest producer of cotton fibre and wants to increase its total output by 50 per cent by investing more than $1 billion in the textile industry by 2005.