What's In Store For Gokaldas Exports In FY25? | NDTV Profit
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00:00We have Sivaramakrishnan Ganapathy joining us, Managing Director at Gokul Das, Gokul Das Exports.
00:07Very good morning to you, sir, and thank you so much. Pleasure to have you today on NDTV Profit.
00:12And we're speaking…
00:12Pleasure to be there.
00:14Absolutely. We're speaking to you just a few days out before the first budget of Modi 3.0.
00:20And so let's start with that sort of context setting and what my colleague Neeraj mentioned
00:25as well. The focus is going to be on labour intensive employment generating sectors,
00:30textiles has been in focus. Let's start with what you hope to see from this budget.
00:36Well, you know, from our perspective, there is continuity in policy. That's great.
00:41You know, we are, I think government has done a lot. And when I say government,
00:45I mean both the central and the state governments. And there are several state governments which are
00:50actually actively encouraging more labour oriented industry and supporting, you know,
00:55further capital creation there. I think, you know, we have what is called ROSCTL,
01:01if there is continuity of that, I think that's what we are looking at, and a long term visibility
01:06of that. So, you know, those kind of signals are more than sufficient for the sector to continue
01:12to perform well.
01:14Okay, so that's the big budget expectations. Now, let's talk about what's happening in terms
01:19of market dynamics right now, Mr. Ganapathy. The industry overall is facing an issue of
01:26an inventory overstock. How are you at Gokul Das dealing with this?
01:32So, you know, this inventory overstock is with the retailers, especially the western retailers.
01:39And most of those retailers have more or less worked their inventory out. So, if you look at
01:46the fashion retailers, by end of 2023, most of them have reduced their inventory to, you know,
01:512022 levels or even earlier. And most of the other, you know, wholesale kind of retail entities,
01:59sportswear and other companies have also reduced their inventory levels considerably.
02:04So, now we are seeing a fairly good demand traction from the, you know, retail industry
02:10from the West, both US and Europe. The retail demand, which is the end user demand, continues
02:16to be doing good at about 2% to 3% year on year growth. So, that is encouraging. And with the
02:23inventory levels coming down to, you know, near normalcy, I think, you know, increasingly going
02:28forward, over the next six months, we will start seeing demand picking up.
02:33Just to follow up on that retail demand, are you seeing it across the board? Are you seeing
02:38differential in terms of tier one, tier two cities? And are you seeing export demand also
02:45panning out on that sense? So, I was really referring to export demand,
02:49because we are, you know, almost exclusively in exports, and we cater to both US and Europe.
02:54And both of these regions, we have seen fairly secular retail demand growth. As far as India
03:01is concerned, I am aware that there is a little bit of demand softness, but then that's not a
03:06market we really cater to. So, we're not really tied into that market at all at the moment.
03:11Okay. Sir, good morning. Just one question. I know we can't talk about specifics. We'll do
03:17that after your numbers are out, because you won't be able to talk numbers, etc. But
03:21your whole strategy of backward integration and those OCD investments that you did in order to
03:27do that as well into yet another asset, I'm just trying to understand, do you reckon that
03:33if the focus in the budget is on textiles and some export impetus being given, does that
03:40increase the probability of very high growth over the next three years for you as a company?
03:49I think so. So, you know, the industry or the sector itself, if there is a right impetus from
03:56the government, as well as, you know, the right environmental structure, which exists in my
04:02belief, that is fairly good demand traction from the global customers. I think if these two
04:09co-exist together, I think for the next three years, we will see a fairly good growth for the
04:14sector. Got it. Mr. Ganpati, we look forward to talking to you post your quarterly numbers are
04:21out so that you are in a bit less constrained, let me put it that way, in talking about numbers.
04:26Wish you all the best for the quarterly numbers and look forward to talk to you post that.
04:30Thank you so much.