Sri Lankan garment exports up 10% in Oct 2017

03 Jan '18

2 min read

Continuing with the positive growth registered since July, Sri Lanka’s export earnings from garments increased by 10 per cent year-on-year to $399.7 million in October 2017. Cumulative textile and garment exports for the first ten months of 2017, however, remained nearly stable, according to statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.

“Garment exports to the US increased by 14.7 per cent, in October 2017 while those to the EU increased by 8.0 per cent with the benefit of GSP+ facility taking effect reflecting increased demand for garments,” the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – October 2017’.

The island nation’s cumulative textile and garment exports during January-October 2017 stood at $4.137 billion, around 0.7 per cent more than $4.107 billion exports made during the comparable period of last year, the central bank data showed.

During January-October 2017, clothing exports alone accounted for $3.895 billion, registering an increase of 0.5 per cent year-on-year.

Textiles and apparel constituted 58.84 per cent of earnings received from all industrial exports made by the South Asian nation during the ten-month period, the data showed.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s expenditure on imports of textiles and textile articles increased by 1 per cent to $2.240 billion in January-October 2017. Clothing and accessories imports were valued at $319.1 million, up 2.9 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