India's textile exports to newer markets rising

14 Nov '11

2 min read

India's textile exports to new and non-traditional markets have increased during the last couple of years.

For several years, the Indian textile industry greatly relied on its major export markets of EU and the US. However, after the 2008 global economic meltdown the Indian industry became circumspect about relying much on these western markets, and began exploring newer export markets.

Over the past couple of years, the Indian textile industry has been successful in its endeavour of increasing its exports to new markets. It is evident from the statistics of Global Trade Information Services, Geneva, according to which, the country's cotton textile exports, including made ups, yarn and fabric towards the EU and the US have come down to below 45 percent over the past two years form over 60 percent in 2008-09.

In comparison to the decrease in textile exports to traditional markets, India's textile exports to emerging markets like China, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have gone up considerably during these years.

During last fiscal, India exported around US$ 3,000 million worth of textiles to the EU and the US, exactly the same quantum shipped to the two economies in 2008-09. However, exports to other countries grew from US$ 2,026 million in 2008-09 to US$ 3,782 million during 2010-11.

According to experts, owing to a rapid rise in consumption, trade with intra-Asian markets is bound to increase. In addition, India's domestic consumption is also rising at an annual rate of seven percent.

Exports of other textile segments like clothing accessories and knitted apparels are also following a similar trend. From India's overall exports in these segments of around US$ 4,775 million, exports to the EU markets have dropped to around US$ 2,153 million over the past two years. Also, there has not been any increase in its export levels to the US during the period.

On the other hand, exports to smaller markets greatly stimulated India's apparel exports since the onset of financial crisis. While exports to Australia jumped from US$ 15 million two years ago to US$ 32 million, exports to UAE rose from US$ 368 million to US$ 511 million and those to Djibouti from nil to US$ 13 million.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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