The Department of Commerce, India (DoC) claimed in November last year that RMG exports to the world dipped about 40 per cent in October 2017. Value of apparel exports to the US also fell by 17.11 per cent in the same month as compared to October 2016.
However, the data released by OTEXA, the US’ official body for textile and apparel import-export, tells a completely different story.
As Apparel Resources analysed the OTEXA data, it was found that the US witnessed a surge of 14 per cent as far as RMG imports from India is concerned, in the October month. Against the RMG import worth US $ 277 million in October 2016, the US imported apparels from India worth US $ 316 million in the same month of 2017.
On the other hand, the data on the website of DoC indicates that India exported RMG to the US worth US $ 226.46 million (only) in October 2017 as against US $ 273.23 million in the prior-year month.
The DoC claims that knitted garments export from India to the US stood at US $ 114.61 million, whereas the value of woven garment export was US $ 111.85 million in the October 2017.
This massive difference of around US $ 90 million in the reporting month’s data of both country’s official trade bodies brings Apparel Resources to a point where it’s hard to believe if the reported plunge (of 40 per cent) in total global RMG exports from India is truly analysed or rightly calculated by DoC.
Moving further, DoC also estimated that the total RMG exports from India declined by 10 per cent in the following month too. However, both OTEXA and DoC have not released the official data for the November month.
It may be noted here that the US and the EU are the top two apparel export destinations for India with around 22.5 per cent of RMG exports from the country going to the US.
