{"id":32023,"date":"2023-05-03T07:31:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T07:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/sri-lanka-apparel-exports\/"},"modified":"2023-05-03T07:35:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-03T07:35:33","slug":"sri-lanka-apparel-exports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/sri-lanka-apparel-exports\/","title":{"rendered":"Sri Lanka apparel exports to drop by $1 billion in 2023-trade body"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Uditha Jayasinghe<\/p>\n

COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s apparel export earnings could slump by $1 billion this year, a top industry expert said on Wednesday, as slowing global demand hits the crisis-hit South Asian country.<\/p>\n

Apparel is Sri Lanka’s largest industrial export and earned $5.95 billion in 2022, helping the country as it weathered its worst financial crisis since independence in 1948, triggered by a record reduction in foreign exchange reserves.<\/p>\n

But the industry’s first-quarter performance in 2023 has struggled with textiles and garment exports dropping 13.8% to $1.3 billion, data from Sri Lanka’s central bank showed.<\/p>\n

Exports in March marked the lowest in three years, said Yohan Lawrence, Secretary General of the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), which is the industry’s apex body. <\/p>\n

“Given the slowdown in demand we are seeing now, a $1 billion reduction in exports this year is not unreasonable,” he told Reuters.<\/p>\n

“Our projection is it could be five to six more months before we see a recovery in global demand.” <\/p>\n

Shipments to the Unites States, the country’s biggest buyer, dropped by 22% to $470 million in the first quarter. <\/p>\n

Exports to the European Union fell 13% to $344 million while first-quarter exports to the United Kingdom were down 10% to $167.7 million, according to the latest JAAF data. <\/p>\n

A steep 66% power tariff hike in February has also hit Sri Lanka’s competitiveness, Lawrence added. <\/p>\n

However, the industry is not expecting significant job losses from the downturn but small and medium companies could see difficulties as the sector adapts to deal with a slowdown in orders. <\/p>\n

The island’s apparel sector has about 300,000 employees, most of whom are women.<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Uditha Jayasinghe; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)<\/p>\n

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By Uditha Jayasinghe COLOMBO (Reuters) – Sri Lanka’s apparel export earnings could slump by $1 billion this year, a top industry expert said on Wednesday, as slowing global demand hits the crisis-hit South Asian country. Apparel is Sri Lanka’s largest industrial export and earned $5.95 billion in 2022, helping the country as it weathered its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":32024,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-economy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportEconomy\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4207U-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32025,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32023\/revisions\/32025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}