Morocco's garment exports towards recovery

30 Nov '10

2 min read

As a result of the upturn in demand from European nations, Morocco's clothing and textile export earning appears to meet at least their 2009 levels.

Regardless of the failure that the sector experienced in the beginning of this year, its earnings are expected to be equivalent to that of 2009.

After a drop of 30 percent in the export earnings during initial six months, the sector for the last five to six months has now started recovering, mainly due to the rise in demand from the country's major markets like Spain and France.

Textile exports yields the second highest export revenue to the country, next to phosphate. Last year, it dropped by six percent from that of 2008, mainly because recession had badly hit its major markets including France and Spain.

Further, the rising prices boosted the country's earnings from exports of phosphate and its by-products by some 83 percent till September, experts were apprehensive if the labour-intensive textile sector would see 2010 as another bad year.

After the textile and clothing exports dropped by around six percent in 2009 from the 2008's 30 billion dirham, this year they are seen to bring in some 28 to 29 billion dirham to the country's economy, the official statistics revealed.

EU constitutes to be Morocco's major exporter, but now as it is adding new countries to its list of sourcing countries, this has adversely affected Morocco's competitiveness, particularly in relation to China and Pakistan.

The Moroccan Government, intending to alleviate the effects of global slump, has started offering incentives like tax concessions to manufacturing businesses which even includes textile firms.

Though, the incentives have been of great assistance for the country's textile industry, but experts believe that as the sector is now recovering therefore these incentives will not be required, next year.

Fibre2fashion News Desk-India