Sujeewa urges apparel industry to boost value addition to over 80%

By Shehana Dain

The apparel industry was yesterday urged to boost the value addition to over 80% from the current 60% to ensure greater benefit to the country as well help realise the goal of $ 20 billion in overall exports.

 “We have to enhance our value addition in the apparel industry. When Sri Lanka started the apparel industry the value addition was around 20-30% and today it is about 60%. We like to see it rise to about 80%-85%,” State Minister of International Trade Sujeewa Senasinghe said yesterday.

He was speaking at the opening of the International Apparel sourcing exhibition organized by Worldex India and co-organised by the Export Development Board.

Senasinghe was of the view that the industry as a whole has lagged behind in a quantitative aspect as opposed to quality.

“When the industry took off about 30 years ago the industry was worth $ 4.5 billion after all these years it hasn’t improved. Sri Lanka has come a long way in the quality aspect but lags behind in the quantity aspect. We have to change that,” Senasinghe commented.

“We are hoping to start up about 5,000 manufacturing plants at the end of five years, with 45 new zones designated to each area. We are working on the GSP+ and also on free trade agreements with other countries. With all these we are hoping to increase national exports to $ 20 billion by 2020,” the State Minister said.

During the first eight months of this year, Sri Lanka’s apparel exports amounted to $ 3.21 billion, down by 1% from a year earlier. In the month of August apparel exports were down by 6.6% to $ 400 million. The industry has targeted $ 5 billion exports by the end of 2015 and $ 8.5 billion by 2020.

The State Minister stressed higher value addition is critical to realise this target thereby helping achieve the $ 20 billion overall exports mark by 2020.

The two day exhibition themed ‘Intex South Asia 2015’ comprises of around 120 exhibitors from 11 countries. This is the first fair in South Asia to cater exclusively for manufacturers from the Asian market that would surely bridge the gap between global buyers and South Asian suppliers. It presents a carefully-selected group of high-quality Asian companies with a wide range of 100% Made-in-Asia textile and accessories.

Delivering the welcome speech Worldtex Managing Director Rajesh Bhagat noted that the South Asian region needs a strong manufacturing hub to increase exports from the region.

“We have strong sourcing platforms in China and most parts of the world. However, South Asia being so strong in garment manufacturing; we still lack a sourcing platform. We organised this in Sri Lanka because it’s a gateway for manufactures and garment exporters, to create greater connectivity value.”