Jan-Nov 17 Apparel Exports Exceeds Expectation – Rishad

First held in 1998, today AISEX has become a major industry event in Colombo for apparel export manufacturers and industry suppliers of Sri Lanka and abroad.

While addressing the launch of ninth Apparel Industry Suppliers Exhibition (AISEX) 2018 by Lanka Exhibitions & Conference Services in Colombo on January 16, the Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen said,  our apparel revenues from January to November last year (2017) has exceeded Sri Lanka’s entire apparel exports for 2016 which was $ 4.3 billion. Even the November 2017 monthly apparel exports of $ 406 Million is an 11% increase in comparison to November 2016’s $ 364 Million

  Therefore we now expect that the final total apparel exports for entire 2017 would clearly exceed the exports of 2016, and expect it to be in the range of $ 4.7 billion.

I praise Sri Lanka apparel industry and the exporters for this great performance. As you may already know Textile and Apparel are almost half of our total annual exports of all products. Our largest apparel export market is the US at around 42% followed by the EU at around 38%. What is more important is that two-thirds of the apparel workforces are women and therefore this sector is a major industry supporting the development of our female labour force. Therefore it is clear that events such as AISEX help strengthen our apparel sector in many ways, Minister Rishad added.