Garment export target in jeopardy

The country''s readymade garments exports target of $3,410 million for the current fiscal year (2006-07) is in jeopardy mainly due to the tough competition in international market and high cost of production, trade sources told Business Recorder on Monday.
"Fiscal year target is not possible to be achieved as the readymade industry is faced with tough challenges and increasing problems which have scaled down its export ratio and put a negative impact on its manufacturing growth," an exporter said.
"The aggregate exports of readymade garments from the country currently stand at $1724 million and we have still to fill the remaining gap of $1686 million in five months of the current fiscal year. That is difficult enough," he said.
He said that high cost of production, ie increasing utility charges including gas, electricity, and water, have led the garment industry to a decline, while export duties are also a contributing factor in the declining readymade exports.
"Despite the fact that the exports ratio has gone up by 15 percent during July-December 2006-07 against the corresponding period of last fiscal year, the fiscal target is still difficult to be attained in the remaining months," he observed.
Within two months--February and March--the increasing export graph will certainly plunge because the earlier growth occurred during the peak buying season in the West, while the remaining five months of the fiscal year are believed to be the lean period for garment exports, he said.
"The growth in garment export failed to be capitalised on the high sales season in the West, namely, on Christmas event, and remained lower than expectations. It should have been manifold higher," he added.
Another exporter said that lack of new designs in the readymade products was also one of the genuine reasons that regressed its marketing in the world market. "New designs in readymade garments are believed to be prerequisites for marketing the products in the international market, which is badly missed in our case," he added.
He said that the country''s readymade garments are normally refused by the international buyers due to same reason, whereas the other regional countries, including India and Bangladesh, were receiving an extraordinary response in the world market because they had expertise and latest technology in the field of value-added textile sector.
He said that new markets in the world must be explored and in this regard the government should give the exporters incentives with a view to augment textile export manifold and help minimise the growing export decline.
"The new markets of the world could be the Latin America, Caribbean countries and Central American region where so far none of the exporters has marketed readymade garments from Pakistan," he said. Regarding travel barriers in these regions, he said that unlike EU and US, in the said regions no such problems of travelling and immigration were likely to occur.