The Indian Textile Engineering Industry (TEI) is one of the most important capital goods sectors in India. The TEI has contributed substantially over the last five decades in providing state-of-the-art and modern machinery to the different segments of the textile industry. The industry is also exporting approx. 35% of its production to more than 50 countries of the world.

TEI consists of over 3000 machinery and equipment manufacturing units – over 1400 units producing complete machinery, 1200 parts and accessories, and about 400 traders and dealers. It has invested about Rs.950 billion (US$ 14.88 billions) to build up an annual estimated capacity of Rs. 1100 billion (US$ 1.723 billions). The manufactures of parts & accessories cater to the original equipment manufacturers, textile mills and for export. These units are predominantly in the SMEs sector.

The capacity creation and technological levels in the Textile Engineering Industry has been largely influenced by the spinning sector which has modernized and expanded substantially in the last several decades. The entire range of machinery required for spinning is manufactured by the TEI. The pre-dominance of the decentralized sector in the weaving and finishing sectors has stymied the demand for domestic capital goods (generally) and hi-tech ones (specifically). In the absence of an economically viable demand the Textiles Machinery Manufacturing Industry (TMMI) did not build up enough capacity to produce hi-tech weaving, knitting and processing machines, earlier.

In the past, the TEI had largely depended on foreign technical/technical-cum-financial collaborations, and indigenous development was not significant. After the liberalization of Industrial Policy in 1991, many of the foreign collaborations were not renewed. The TEI started upgrading its technology on its own. While the Spinning Sector was upgraded continuously, the pre-weaving sector followed later. Today the technology of spinning and pre-weaving machinery are of international standard. Due to the spurt in demand after 2004, the TEI had geared up its technology level and ventured in the fields of shuttleless rapier looms, waterjet looms and airjet looms as well as continuous dyeing ranges, bleaching range, mercerizing and pre-shrinking ranges etc.