Apparel export target of $17 billion likely to be met: AEPC

The garment industry is expected to achieve the $17 billion target for the current fiscal as the outbound shipments have already touched the about $5 billion level in the first four months of 2013-14, the Apprel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) today said.

This growth can be attributed to the recovery in USA economy, which is India's second largest export destination, besides emerging markets like Latin America and Africa.

"For the current fiscal, the government has fixed $17 billion target for garment exports. If the same growth momentum continues and our major recommendations are met by the government, we may be quite close to the target," AEPC Chairman A Sakthivel said while addressing the 34th Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the council here.

The council had also organised a discussion on enhancing apparel exports which was held under the Chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary Ajit Seth in May and had suggested various proposals during the meeting.

These proposals which include import of synthetic fabrics at a lower duty of 5% in the entire 12th Five-Year Plan from the existing 21% and a separate chapter for getting export credit at fixed 7.5% as done in the past.

However, Sakthivel said the European market has still not recovered. The US and Europe together account for about 66% of the country's total apparel shipments.

Against the back drop of exports in 2012-13, apparel exports have picked up really fast in the first four months of 2013-14. During April-July 2013-14, exports have increased by 13% year-on-year to about $5 billion, he added.

Further, AEPC said that though there has been a decline in the share of traditional market in India's total apparel exports to world in 2012-13, the share of non-traditional markets in the last fiscal has increased to 34% from 30%.

In 2012-13, apparel exports declined by 6% to $12.92 billion.

Talking about the Driving Industry Towards Sustainable Human Capital Advancement (DISHA), Sakthivel said: "AEPC's flagship programme 'DISHA' has now completed one year of implementation. With over 15 cluster awareness programmes, the programme today has over 328 enrollments."

Also, 150 factories have already gone through a holistic capacity building in the area of 11 code principles of the programme, thus, completing the DISHA facilitation process and external assessment, he said.

"The programme has been received with great enthusiasm by the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and US Deptartment of Labour. The Indian apparel industry has implemented an industry-wide measure for facilitating and preparing Indian apparel manufacturers toward becoming more socially and environmentally responsible," Sakthivel said.

 Besides, AEPC would set up sector skill council for apparel, made-ups, home furnishing, including handloom.

In the area of skill development, it has assessed a total number of 5,800 candidates in the 2013-14 (up to 2nd September 2013) under Skill Development Initiative (SDI), scheme of Modular Employable Scheme (MES) of the Director General of Employment & Training (DGE&T).

The candidates assessed the Non-MES scheme are 4,595, while the total number of candidates assessed is 10,395, Sakthivel said.