Sri Lanka's textile & garment exports up 6.3% in Jan-March '21

04 Jun '21

2 min read

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Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garments exports increased by 6.3 per cent year-on-year to $1.333 billion during the first three months of 2021, according to the statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka. Exports of textiles increased 20.7 per cent to $78.4 million, while garment exports were up 4.7 per cent to $1.219 billion.

Exports of other made-up textile articles fetched $36 million, registering an increase of 38.1 per cent, the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – March 2021’.

Textiles and garments exports accounted for 57.9 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the three-month period.

Imports of textiles and textile articles too rose by 14.2 per cent to $710.2 million, while clothing and accessories imports fell 23.8 per cent to $55.7 million during January-March 2021.

In March 2021, Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garment exports shot up by 49.4 per cent to $467.2 million, compared to exports of $312.7 million in the same month of 2020. Expenditure on textiles and textile articles soared 80.2 per cent year-on-year to $250.9 million, while clothing and accessories imports were up 30.3 per cent to $19.8 million.

In 2020, Sri Lanka's textiles and garment exports stood at $4.423 billion, registering a steep fall of 21 per cent compared to exports of $5.596 billion in the preceding year. Of this, clothing exports fetched $3.939 billion, a fall of 24.3 per cent over $5.205 billion in 2019. On the other hand, imports of textiles and textile articles decreased by 19.7 per cent to $2.335 billion.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)