Sri Lankan garment exports up 13.5% in Sept 2017

10 Dec '17

2 min read

Continuing with the positive growth registered since July, Sri Lanka’s export earnings from garments increased by 13.5 per cent year-on-year to $407 million in September 2017. Cumulative textile and garment exports for the first nine months of 2017, however, remained stable, according to statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

“Earnings from exports continued its increasing trend in September 2017 as well. This growth was mainly led by higher earnings from industrial exports owing to the increase in exports of textiles and garments as a result of improved garment exports to both the US and EU market,” the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – September 2017’.

The increase in garment exports, especially to the EU market is a result of the positive impact of the restoration of the GSP+ facility in May 2017.

The island nation’s cumulative textile and garment exports for the first three quarters of 2017 stood at $3.715 billion, same as the value of exports during the comparable period of last year, the central bank data showed.

During January-September 2017, clothing exports alone accounted for $3.495 billion, down 0.5 per cent year-on-year.

Textiles and apparel constituted 58.9 per cent of earnings received from all industrial exports made by the South Asian nation during the nine-month period, the data showed.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s expenditure on imports of textiles and textile articles increased by 0.6 per cent to $1.998 billion in January-September 2017. Clothing and accessories imports were valued at $284.5 million, down 1.1 per cent.

Sri Lanka earned $4.884 billion in textiles and apparel exports in 2016, registering a growth of mere 1.3 per cent year-on-year. Of this, clothing exports alone accounted for $4.602 billion, up 1 per cent over previous year’s earnings of $4.555 billion. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India