Sustainability initiatives were at the heart of SriLanka’s textiles-garment sector, which was temporarily affected following theApril 21 blasts.

Sustainability initiatives remained the focus in 2019 inSri Lanka’s textiles and garment sector, whose businesses were temporarilyaffected by the delay in clearance of raw material shipments and securitychecks following the April 21 blasts in churches across the country. Work on anew fabric processing park in Batticaloa and the relatively low utilisation rateof the generalised system of preference plus (GSP) facility of the EuropeanUnion (EU) were the other key developments.

Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garment exportsincreased by 6.6 per cent year on year to $4.62 billion in the first ten monthsof 2019, according to the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBS), which said earningsincreased in October following a slight decline recorded in September 2019,supported by higher demand for garment exports from all major markets. Aftercrossing the $5-billion export target in 2018, the apparel industry is eyeingexports up to $8 billion by 2025.

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