Indian handicraft exports surge 19% in May

02 Jul '11

3 min read

Indian handicrafts exports have surged from US $154 million in May 2010 to US $183 million in May 2011, up 19% year-on-year. In the first two months of the current fiscal beginning April, handicraft shipments rose 16% year-on-year.

This has been mainly made possible due to an increase in demand from the European and US markets, which together account for around 60% of Indian handicraft exports.

The exports of handicrafts which had been rising on a sustained basis till 2006-07 started declining in the year 2007-08 and 2008-09. However, during 2009-10, exports started picking up and the trend is still continuing.

In 2010-11, shawls registered a growth of 38%, hand printed textiles and scarves recorded a rise of 19%, embroidered and crochet goods posted an increase of 15%, while, zari and zari goods showed a growth of 17%.

It is expected that the growth in the year 2011-12 will be good. The highest growth in the first two months of the current fiscal has come again from imitation jewellery, followed by wooden and metal handicrafts, crochet goods, hand printed textiles, shawls and zari goods.

Speaking exclusively to fibre2fashion, Mr Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director - Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH) said, “Exports of handicrafts during the year 2010-11 stood at Rs. 10,533.96 crore against Rs. 8718.94 crore in 2009-10, up 20.82%.

Informing about the latest developments in the sector, he said, “The EPCH and the handicrafts exporting community is now not only focusing on the traditional markets like US, Europe and the Far-East, but it is now making concentrated efforts for exploring new markets like Central Asia, Africa, Latin America. It is also exploring markets for new product lines”.

Providing information about share of various countries in the Indian handicraft export basket, he revealed, “The Indian handicraft industry has been exporting to various countries in the world. However, so far the US has the largest share amounting to 28.60%, UK 10.66%, Germany 8.99%, UAE 6.02%, France 4.45%, Italy 3.43%, Netherlands 2.9%, Canada 2.86%, Japan 2.23%, Switzerland 1.41%, Australia 1.31% and Latin America 1.72%”.

About the conditions in the global market at present and on the demand for Indian handicrafts, he said, “The world market has improved considerably after recession. The demand is picking up. The world market is estimated to be $235 billion and growth rate is estimated at 5%. India's share in the world market is very meager.

“However, the demand for Indian products is very high despite the fact that the Indian products face competition from China, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines and Turkey etc. Indian products have supremacy of their own for the intricate and exquisite craftsmanship and diversity in designs, raw material and colours from ethnic to modern and contemporary as compared to China where most of products are machine made. While, Indian products have supremacy, as these are still hand crafted”.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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