Apparel export earnings to shoot over US $ 4.7bn in 2017

Sri Lanka is expecting in excess of US $ 4.7 billion in apparel exports in 2017, as the 2017 cumulative exports up to November have already passed the full-year earnings figure in 2016, the country’s Industry and Commerce Minister said.

“Our apparel revenues from January to November last year (2017) have exceeded Sri Lanka’s entire apparel exports for 2016, which was US $ 4.3 billion,” said Rishad Bathiudeen said this week.

Therefore, we now expect that the final total apparel exports for entire 2017 would clearly exceed the exports of 2016 and expect it to be in the range of US $ 4.7 billion,” he added. 

Textile and apparel are almost half of our Sri Lanka’s total annual exports of all products. The country’s largest apparel export market is the US with a 42 percent share, followed by the European Union (EU) with 38 percent.

The two major export destinations for the Lankan apparel showed a positive trend during January-November 2017. In this period, the total apparel exports to the US was US $ 1.959 billion, slightly up from 2016 January-November figure of US $ 1.94 billion and the exports to the EU were at US $ 1.84  billion, up from US $ 1.80 billion.

Sri Lanka regained GSP Plus access to the EU last year.