EDB concludes successful participation at International Sourcing Expo, Australia

The Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) with the assistance of Sri Lanka Consulates in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia organised Sri Lanka’s participation at the ‘International Sourcing Expo’ held from 15 to 18 November 2016. Eight Sri Lankan companies participated at the program which included a visit to the Australian fashion market in addition to trade fair participation.

International Sourcing Expo is Australia’s leading sourcing platform for the apparel, accessories and textile industry. This event attracts industry leaders and trade buyers across Australia to visit and make contacts with exhibitors. The fair provides the opportunity to connect directly with buyers who attend with the intent of placing orders representing major national chains, buying groups, independent operators, agents and distributors across the industry providing opportunities for the exhibitors to make contacts with key decision makers of the Australian apparel industry.

The EDB and the apparel industry have identified Australia as an important emerging market for Sri Lanka apparel. Australia is one of the wealthiest in the world and ranked as the world’s 12th largest economy in 2015. Australia has imported AU Dollar 9.1 billion worth of clothing in 2015 and import of apparel and clothing accessories has recorded an increase of 21% over 2014. The major apparel and textile suppliers to Australia are China, India, Vietnam, Fiji, Indonesia and Thailand. Australia’s off shore manufacturing and importing is increasing year on year. Sri Lanka has exported US Dollar 45.24 million worth of apparel products to Australia in 2015 and apparel has been the main Sri Lankan export to Australia since 2013 and the value of apparel exports has been gradually increasing during the last few years. 

This promotion program was organised with the objective of  understanding the business potential for Sri Lanka to develop business contacts with Australia and explore the possibility of further enhancing Sri Lanka apparel exports to Australia in the efforts to  diversify into new markets to achieve the export target of $ 8 billion by 2020.

The delegation comprised of three large companies and five SME companies, which included Trendywear Ltd., Garment Services Ltd., Sumithra Garments Ltd., Stylish Garments Ltd., Classic Exports Ltd., Sarasavi Exports Ltd., Queens Workwear Ltd. and Bivoran Apparel Ltd.

The participants have received 95-100 inquiries and presently is in the process of following up with respective contacts for further developments. Sri Lankan participants got the opportunity to meet major buyers such as Cotton On, Forever New, Bendigo Clothing, Metalicus, Feathers, Charles Parsons, etc during their participation at the trade fair. 

Visit to Australian fashion market provided the participants with the opportunity of visiting some departmental stores such as Myer, David Jones, Target, K-Mart where many clothing brands are located and few Australian fashion clothing stores i.e. Ally Fashions, Motto Ladies Fashion, Lorna Jane etc. It helped them to understand the market in terms of quality, prices, market trends etc since this was the first visit to Australia by many companies.