After registering a steep fall of 21 per cent year-on-year to $4.423 billion in 2020, textile and garment exports from Sri Lanka are likely to cross $5-billion mark in 2021, as the island nation has already earned $4.404 billion until October, growing at 20.8 per cent year-on-year, according to the statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Exports of garments were up 23.6 per cent year-on-year to $4.011 billion during the first ten months of last year, while textile exports increased by 37.3 per cent and fetched $285.5 million, the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – October 2021’. Exports of other made-up textile articles fetched $107 million during January-October 2021, registering a huge decline of 44.2 per cent year-on-year, as per the latest figures released by the country’s central bank.
Textiles and garments exports accounted for 56.07 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the ten-month period, the report showed. Imports of textiles and textile articles too rose by 31.2 per cent to $2.471 billion, while clothing and accessories imports were up marginally by 6.5 per cent to $176.6 million during January-October 2021.
During the month of October, Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garment exports surged by 42.5 per cent to $510.6 million, compared to exports of $358.2 million in the same month of 2020. Expenditure on textiles and textile articles jumped by 21.9 per cent year-on-year to $265.8 million, while clothing and accessories imports shot up by 54.8 per cent to $19.8 million.
In 2020, Sri Lanka’s clothing exports fetched $3.939 billion, a fall of 24.3 per cent over $5.205 billion in 2019. On the other hand, imports of textiles and textile articles decreased by 19.7 per cent to $2.335 billion.
