Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garments exports increased by 28 percent year-on-year to $2.487 billion during the first six months of 2021, according to the statistics released by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka.
Exports of textiles increased 47.8 percent to $156.6 million, while garment exports were up 30.8 percent to $2.267 billion.
Exports of other made-up textile articles fetched $63.3 million, registering a decrease of 39 per cent year-on-year, the central bank said in its report ‘External Sector Performance – June 2021’.
Textiles and garments exports accounted for 56.43 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the six-month period, the report said.
Imports of textile articles too rose by 36.2 per cent to $1.451 billion, while clothing and accessories imports fell 5.1 per cent to $105.3 million during January-June 2021.
In June 2021, Sri Lanka’s earnings from textiles and garment exports increased by 2.9 per cent to $415.5 million, compared to exports of $403.7 million in the same month of 2020. Expenditure on textiles and textile articles shot up by 57.5 per cent year-on-year to $276.8 million, while clothing and accessories imports declined by 14.3 per cent to $15.0 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
