Exports of other made-up textile articles fetched $44.5 million, registering an increase of 59 per cent, the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – April 2021’.
Textiles and garments exports accounted for 57.62 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the four-month period.
Imports of textiles and textile articles too rose by 22.1 per cent to $938.6 million, while clothing and accessories imports fell 12.2 per cent to $74.9 million during January-April 2021.
In April 2021, Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garment exports shot up by 461.2 per cent to $366 million, compared to exports of $65.2 million in the same month of 2020. Expenditure on textiles and textile articles soared 55.5 per cent year-on-year to $228.4 million, while clothing and accessories imports were up 57.8 per cent to $19.2 million.
In 2020, Sri Lanka's textiles and garment exports stood at $4.423 billion, registering a steep fall of 21 per cent compared to exports of $5.596 billion in the preceding year. Of this, clothing exports fetched $3.939 billion, a fall of 24.3 per cent over $5.205 billion in 2019. On the other hand, imports of textiles and textile articles decreased by 19.7 per cent to $2.335 billion.
Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RKS)