It would be interesting to see what Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winner economist said recently. According to him, "Although the worst of the financial crisis was over, the world now faces a prolonged slowdown like Japans "lost decade" of the 1990s." When asked how do get we get out, he said, The technical answer is - God knows. We have a great shortage of role models." He said, in the past, swift economic recoveries saw affected countries export their way out of trouble by trading with countries with large surpluses. He added, Unless we can find another planet to export to, we cannot have an export-led recovery from this global financial crisis, which means we have a serious difficulty." Some other possible solutions like consumer spending, business investment and housing booms are all unlikely to kick-start the US or world economic this time. He concluded, "We seem to have avoided the Great Depression 2.0. I do believe that full recovery is at least two years and probably more than that off."

EU markets, too, do not offer any scope for imports of Indian textile and garments, even if some of the member-countries have managed to break into the threshold of recovery.

New Markets?

Though the Government has been exhorting the garment exporters (or for that matters all exporters) to explore new markets, as if these can be found out by just waving a magic wand. It is not that the Indian garment exporters have not been looking for new markets, ever since they started exporting, but their efforts have not been met with any resounding success. To sermonize the exporters that the solution to their problem of shrinking exports in the global economic recession period lies in exploring new markets seems to be too simplistic, if not nave.

Even the recent survey undertaken by FICCI confirms that "The participating companies indicated that they have lost most of their major markets primarily in Europe and the US and are struggling to find new markets for their products." It needs to be understood and appreciated that even at good times, the exporters have been attempting to develop "new markets" and their success varied from limited to very limited, how can one think that these exporters have any chance of "exploring new markets" to sell their products, when each and every country is struggling to survive the economic recession and resultant shrinking markets for their products, leading to increasing unemployment and falling incomes. When the going is getting tougher by the day by economic powers and even economic super-powers which has reduced their consumption levels, how can one even perceive that the smaller but "new markets" could help Indian exporters.

Could IIP Surge Promote Exports?

As suggested earlier, the one-time IIP surge could be an aberration, but it is too nascent and too weak to be trusted for even kick-starting the reversal of downward movement of exports, particularly the garment exports, though some people still want to enjoy their pipe-dream. A more suitable food for thought has rightly been identified by The Economic Times, which has set up an ET Jury Rountable with the topics like "Green Shoots or Yellow Weeds?"

Here 'I' refers to the author of the article