India’s textiles and apparel exports continued to decline in FY 2019 as the total textile products exports remained flat during the said period. Total textile products grew a mere 1.66 per cent to US $ 35.969 billion as compared to US $ 35.381 billion the previous fiscal, as the apparel shipments went down 3.42 per cent.
The export of textiles products grew 6.19% to US $ 19.830 billion during the fiscal under review as compared to US $ 18.674 billion a year ago and that of apparels declined sharply by 3.40% to US $ 16.138 billion during the fiscal 2019 as against US $ 16.706 billion in the previous financial year, said the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI). It also maintained that among textile products, cotton yarn, fabrics, made-ups, handloom products continued to be the largest export earner with a growth of 9.22% during the fiscal 2019 to US $ 11.206 billion.
The next big segment under the category is carpet, which saw a growth of 3.63% to US $ 1.481 billion as compared to US$ 1.429 billion in fiscal 2018.
The decline in the country’s apparel exports in FY19 was primarily driven by a sharp decline witnessed in shipments to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from July 2017 onwards after the introduction of GST and reduction of duty drawback rates in October last year.
Exports have been de-growing till September this year. But October onwards, it showed a recovery against the low base of the same months in the previous fiscal. This low base helped exports grow in the month of March by 15.13%. However, compared to FY17’s exports of US $ 17.4 billion, FY19’s export of US$ 16.1 billion is still 7.47% lower.
According to A. Sakthivel, Vice-Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), “Under the GST, there was almost 7% reduction in the incentives that the exporters were receiving earlier and they also had to adjust to the new system”.
Meanwhile, the all India Readymade Garment exports recorded Rs.1,12,715 Crore in 2018-19 against Rs.1,07,679 Crore achieved in 2017-18, with a positive growth of 4.7% revealed by Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
TEA President Raja M Shanmugham said the knitwear exports from Tirupur is estimated to be Rs.26,000 Crore in last year 2018-19 against Rs.24,000 Crore in 2017-18, with a growth of 8.3%. He pointed out that though the annual average export growth of 7% was recorded in last year, while analyzing the knitwear export trend, in the last six months, the average export growth was significant about 31.15% over the corresponding period in 2017-18.