JAAF slashes 5-year export targets by $1 bn

28 May '10

2 min read

The poor export climate this year, has forced the apparel industry representative body of the country, The Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) to trim down its export targets by around US $1 billion for the next five years.

In this regard, Secretary General of JAAF, Rohan Masakorala said that, the association had set the revenue target this year as $5 billion. But with no market support and with half the year already gone, the cost structure of the association remained same, and therefore, the association changed its target to $4 billion, which, according to them, was a more realistic target to achieve.

Almost 93 percent of country's overall garment exports are shipped to US and EU, but these markets are still experiencing recessionary impact, which is consequently affecting the Sri Lankan exports.

During initial three months of the current year, export earnings of the country slipped down by around 15 percent against the earnings of the corresponding period of 2009, informed JAAF.

Taking such a trend into account, it has been estimated that, export earnings of the current year will be lower than that of 2009. However, the garment industry is optimistic about 5 percent year-on-year increment in the export revenue from 2011-2015.

The industry is concerned about its future shipments in to the EU market, as Euro has witnessed depreciation against US dollar. Along with this, another issue of concern for Sri Lanka is that, it would be bound to pay 8-12 percent duty on garment exports to EU, as EU is likely to suspend its GSP+ duty-free trade scheme after mid-August 2010.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India