Textile & garment industry shows its resilience

11 Aug '08

4 min read

The textile and garment industry of India is going through, one of its most difficult phases, what with cost of cotton going up by nearly 25 percent in the last few months and the appreciation of the rupee against the dollar in the last 1 year. But the resilient textile and garment sector came up tops to cross export figures achieved in the fiscal ended March 2008, when compared with fiscal ending March 2007. India's fiscal year is from April-March.

The total exports from the sector touched US $16.69 billion in the period April-March 2008 compared to $15.13 billion set a year ago, resulting in a growth of 10.31 percent. This came in the face of an appreciating rupee, which stood at Rs45.25 in 2006-07 and Rs40.26 in 2007-08 against the US dollar. It can be fair to comment that value of exports grew in real terms despite appreciation of a substantial Rs5.00 against the dollar.

The biggest growth in exports came from the manmade yarn, fabrics and madeups' category which saw its revenue rise by 29.69 percent compared to last year. This category saw its exports shoot from $2.20 billion to $2.85 billion in the fiscal ended March-08 in comparison to the same period last year.

The other group which saw a comparable growth was garments made from materials other than cotton, manmade or wool like silk, jute, hemp etc. Exports for this section also grew from $439.95 million to $564.07 million in the period under review to boast a growth of 28.21 percent.

The segment to register the highest exports by value was cotton garments and accessories. Shipments grew to $7.40 billion in the fiscal ended March-08 from $6.91 billion in the previous fiscal to post a growth of 7.16 percent. This category also has the distinction of securing a massive weightage of 44.38 percent of all exports made from the sector.

The other section to deliver the second highest revenue was cotton yarn, fabrics, madeups' and other products made from cotton. This category achieved exports of $4.51 billion in year ended March-2008 against $4.21 billion in the last fiscal, to record an aggregate gain of 6.94 percent. This division contributed 27.02 percent to all the exports made from the industry to stand second among all categories.

Among others, exports of manmade fibre garments amounted to $904.84 million against $933.90 million to register a negative gain of 3.11 percent and were the only category among all to post de-growth. Garments made from wool generated proceeds totaling to $354.16 million against $338.97, which resulted in a growth of 4.48 percent

The other category of woolens, namely, yarns, fabrics and madeups' accounted for a minuscule contribution of just 0.56 percent to overall volume of exports and a marginal $93.09 million by value for the year under consideration, with year on year growth averaging at 9.27 percent .

For purpose of comparison, exports from China have reached $171.17 billion in 2007 and maintained a steady growth rate of 20 percent over the last few years and experts are predicting it to exceed $200 billion in 2008. Smaller countries like Bangladesh and Vietnam have also done exceedingly well.

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