Amid the gloom of a continuing fall in merchandise shipments, there is some cause for cheer from two employment-intensive sectors — textiles and leather.
The Commerce Secretary, Mr S.R. Rao, said the order books of the textiles sector were full and there would be a spurt in export growth in the coming months.
He said the leather sector has also got several export orders, due to the international leather fair held here recently, attended by over 300 companies from India and overseas. The Secretary said there would be another such show in the Capital in September.
Mr A. Sakthivel, Chairman of the Apparel Export Promotion Council, said he was hopeful that apparel exports would achieve the target of $18 billion this fiscal. Exports (with over 7,000 garment exporters and employing over 11 million workers) in the last fiscal were $13.7 billion, barely missing the $14 billion target.
He said the Euro zone crisis had resulted in a fall in orders from the worst-hit countries such as Italy, Greece and Spain, but orders continued to come from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France. There was also a pick-up in orders from the US, he said.
The sector is getting a boost from incentives under the Market-Linked Focus Product Scheme, even for exports to the US and the EU, along with 2 per cent interest subsidy. Meanwhile, talks are on between the Government, RBI and the textile industry for a Rs 35,000-crore debt revamp package.
The apparel sector is undertaking international roadshows to make inroads into non-traditional markets. A delegation of 45 exporters had gone to South Africa in April and to Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden and Denmark, which are not that impacted by the Euro zone crisis) last month, he said.
The Textile Secretary is heading a delegation of 150 exporters to Tokyo from July 18-20. There are more fairs — September 5-6 in Israel and October 11-14 in St Petersburg, Russia. The other upcoming shows are: July 16-18 in Delhi with over 400 participants and 1,500 buyers from all over the world and August 20-22 (Magic Fair in Las Vegas, US).
On competitors such as Bangladesh, which is benefiting from duty-free exports to the US, Mr Sakthivel said once the India-EU Free Trade Agreement is signed by this year-end, the Indian textile sector would get greater market access.
Data for April-June 2012 shows readymade garments fell 12 per cent to $3.2 billion. The Textiles Ministry had said recently that despite the demand slowdown in US and EU, it was hopeful of achieving the export target of $40.5 billion for 2012-13, up from $33 billion last fiscal.
Meanwhile, leather exporters have also taken advantage of various incentives, which pushed up exports by 26.7 per cent in the last fiscal to $4.5 billion.