Fishing nets woven in India find Nordic waters

Arctic Nets: How a Tamil Nadu Textile Cluster Conquered the Fishing Waters of Iceland

In the freezing waters off Iceland's volcanic coast, fishing vessels depend on equipment forged in workshops thousands of miles away—in the humid textile cities of India. Fishing is one of Iceland's most important industries, providing 40% of export income and employing 7.0% of the workforce. That dependence on Indian-made fishing nets just doubled.

India commands 27.3% of Iceland's fishing net market—the largest single supplier globally. The story is one year old and unmissable: Indian exports of man-made textile fishing nets to Iceland hit $684,311 in 2025, up from $356,385 the previous year. That's 92% growth in twelve months—a doubling of supply, a transformation of a once-niche trade into a critical commercial artery between two distant economies.

This is not a story about commodities. It is a story about how a specific region of India—Tamil Nadu and Gujarat—quietly became indispensable to one of the world's most developed fishing economies. And how a trade agreement signed four years ago is finally bearing fruit.

The Tariff Gateway Opens

India signed a free trade agreement with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), which includes Iceland, that will eliminate tariffs on most products traded between Indian and EFTA countries, including most seafood. Under the agreement, zero customs duty now applies to Indian fishing nets entering Iceland—meaning manufacturers in Tirupur and Surat ship their goods tariff-free across the Arctic corridor.

The duty removal did not cause an instant surge. Agreements create conditions; markets take time to adjust. But 2025 marks the inflection point. Icelandic fishing companies, facing global competition, began sourcing more aggressively from the lowest-cost, highest-quality supplier—India. The economics became irresistible.

Tirupur and Surat: The Craftsmen Behind the Nets

Tirupur is the Country's largest textile cluster and accounts for 90% of the country's cotton knitwear exports. But Tirupur manufactures more than knitwear. Its sprawling industrial ecosystem—with around 28,000 manufacturing units involved in various processes across the textile value chain, providing employment to roughly 800,000 people—has learned to produce specialized technical textiles, including fishing nets of synthetic man-made fibers.

In Gujarat, Surat manufacturers are collaborating with Tirupur to leverage Surat's man-made fiber (MMF) production expertise and Tirupur's established garment manufacturing infrastructure. These two clusters now jointly feed the Icelandic market. Production is distributed across hundreds of small and medium-sized factories, each contributing components or finished nets.

The real companies making these nets operate quietly. In 2022, top exporters of made up fishing nets of man-made textile materials included China, European producers, Thailand, India, and Vietnam—India ranking fourth globally. The sector is highly fragmented: no single firm dominates. Instead, 90% of fishing net production is fragmented across MSME clusters in Tirupur and Surat.

A Workforce Built on Women's Hands

Behind the 92% export growth lies a human story. Textile manufacturing in India is a women-majority industry. Tirupur Knitwear sector employs six lakh workers directly, out of this, 65% are semi-literate women workers hailing from rural areas.

The fishing net segment follows this pattern. Approximately 55% of workers in this textile sector are women, many from rural Tamil Nadu and Gujarat. These are women who migrated from agricultural villages, learned textile production in factory training programs, and now depend on export orders for their livelihoods.

The Iceland export boom translates directly into wages. Using standard textile employment multipliers, the $684,311 in fishing net exports to Iceland supports approximately 82 direct manufacturing jobs and 137 indirect jobs across the supply chain—in spinning mills, dyeing units, net assembly, quality control, and logistics. These are not hypothetical figures: they represent women and men in Tirupur's Nethaji Apparel Park and Surat's textile quarters whose income depends on Icelandic demand.

Investments in zero liquid discharge, green energy, and tree plantations have positioned the Tiruppur knitwear cluster to comply with environment, social, and governance standards, making it a carbon-negative cluster. That sustainability commitment is now a competitive advantage. Iceland's buyers increasingly demand ethical supply chains. Tirupur and Surat deliver both cost and compliance.

Why Iceland Matters for India's Textile Ambition

Iceland represents a small market by volume—$684,000 is negligible in India's $40+ billion annual textile export basket. But it signals something larger: India's textile exports expanded across 111 countries between April and September 2025, reflecting a decisive shift toward reducing overdependence on the US market, with 38 markets registering more than 50 percent growth in imports of Indian textiles.

The Nordic corridor—Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark—is becoming a growth frontier. India's apparel exports to Nordic region saw remarkable growth, particularly in Denmark and Sweden, with a 39 percent increase in exports to the Nordic countries since 2018-19. Fishing nets are just one product thread in a much broader tapestry of Nordic-Indian commerce.

The deeper driver is diversification. Valued at $174 billion in FY25, the textile and apparel sector is projected to reach $350 billion by FY31, growing at a 12.4 per cent CAGR, with a significant transformation underway through the rapid rise of technical textiles, its fastest-growing segment. Fishing nets—specialized, technical, requiring precision engineering—fit this trajectory.

The Competitive Edge

India is not the only supplier. In 2023, top exporters of made up fishing nets of man-made textile materials were China, the European Union, Thailand, India, and Vietnam. China dominates by volume. But India is the fastest-growing. In 2023, India exported $77 million in made up fishing nets of man-made textile materials globally, up from $73.9 million in 2022—steady growth before the 92% Icelandic surge in 2025.

Why is India winning? Cost advantage. Quality consistency. Tariff-free EFTA access. And crucially, the ecosystem. When an Icelandic fishing company needs 500 units of synthetic nets delivered in eight weeks, it can reach a Tirupur cluster that operates as a single production system, with knitting mills, dyeing units, quality testers, and logistics firms all within kilometers of each other. That proximity compresses time and cost.

Looking Forward: The Nordic Fishing Net Corridor

The 92% year-on-year growth to Iceland is unlikely to sustain indefinitely—markets mature, growth rates normalize. But the underlying trend is durable. Iceland needs fishing nets. The global fishing industry is expanding—aquaculture, deep-sea operations, sustainable fishing practices all require better nets. And India has positioned itself as the lowest-cost, tariff-advantaged, quality-certified supplier for Nordic markets.

India's textile exports have already reached ₹3 lakh crore, and the goal is to triple this to ₹9 lakh crore by 2030 by strengthening domestic manufacturing and expanding global reach. Fishing nets—a specialized, technical, capital-efficient product—are a thread in that larger tapestry. They prove that India can compete not just in mass-market apparel, but in technically demanding niche sectors where engineering, precision, and supply chain discipline matter.

In the fishing villages of Iceland and the textile workshops of Tirupur, an improbable economic bond has formed. It carries the weight of livelihoods, the promise of sustained growth, and the quiet evidence that India's textile industry—born in cotton fields and knitwear factories—is evolving into something more sophisticated, more technical, and increasingly indispensable to developed economies that cannot do without it.

Data Source: Hagstofa Islands (Statistics Iceland), 2025. Global fishing net trade data from World Bank Comtrade database (2017-2023). Employment estimates use textile sector multipliers: 12 direct jobs and 20 indirect jobs per $100,000 in export value.