Sri Lankan textile exports down 5.2% in H1 2017

30 Aug '17

2 min read

Continuing with the previous month’s negative trend, Sri Lankan export earnings from textiles and garments dropped 7.5 per cent in June 2017. Cumulative exports for the first six months of 2017 fell 5.2 per cent to $2.383 billion compared to exports of $2.514 billion in the same period of last year, data released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka showed.

In June 2017, the island nation exported textiles and garments worth $398.1 million, as against export earnings of $430.2 million in June. The fall in export earnings during the month reflects “a decline in garment exports to the US and EU markets”, the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance –June 2017’.

During January-June 2017, clothing exports alone accounted for $2.244 billion, down 5.6 per cent year-on-year.

Textiles and apparel constituted 58.62 per cent of earnings received from all industrial exports made by the South Asian nation during the six-month period, the data showed.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka’s expenditure on imports of textiles and textile articles also decreased 3 per cent year-on-year to $1.306 billion in January-June 2017, as against imports valued at $1.346 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year, the report showed. This was despite a modest growth of 1.7 per cent in June 2017.

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