The deceleration of growth this year comes after a modest rise during 1997-98 at 6 per cent and a whopping 26 per cent jump during 1996-97.

However, rupee depreciation helped to tide over this fall and in fact cotton textile exports in rupee terms notched up a gain of 7 per cent to Rs 6962.76 crore during April-September 1998 as against Rs 6515.34 crore recorded during the same half of the previous year.

Major setback to the cotton textiles exports came from cotton yarn which has been suffering from the market crash in the east Asian countries. Cotton yarn exports which form a big chunk of total cotton textile exports came down by 19 per cent to $683.96 million during the first six months of 1998-99 from $844.96 million during the same of preceding year. In terms of rupee also, cotton yarn exports fell by 6 per cent to Rs2846.66 crore from Rs 3036.78 crore over the same period.

Among other items of cotton textile exports, cotton fabrics too was affected with its export in dollar terms coming down by 3 per cent. However in rupee terms it went up by 12 per cent due to falling rupee. The saving grace has been cotton made-ups whose exports rose by 9 per cent to $450.95 million during the first six months of the current year from $412.22 million during the corresponding period of the last year.

In terms of rupee, the uptrend was enhanced by weakening rupee and exports of cotton made-ups sharply rose by 27 per cent to Rs 1876.85 crore during April-September 1998 from Rs 1481.54 crore during the corresponding six months last year.

During the first half year, generally 50 per cent of the export target is achieved. However, this time around, only 47 per cent of the target set at $3575 million has been achieved for the current half year. Considering the recession in the world market, the cotton textile export target has beenlowered to $3575 million from last year's $3800 million.

However, sources at The Cotton Textile Export Promotion Council (Texprocil) opine that this half-yearly performance of cotton textile exports picking up by 7 per cent indicate a reversal of downtrend.

"Perhaps worst is over and now there would not be any further deceleration in growth" says an official at Texprocil adding "the prospects may not be too rosy but it is not too bleak either."

Reportedly, cotton yarn market is stabilising and the slide has been arrested. It will not go down any further according to the experts. Cotton made-ups have maintained the growth and is likely to grow faster, say observers.

During this half-year, cotton textile exports to non-quota countries have shrunk to 56 per cent as compared to 62 per cent last year mainly because of the fall in the market in east Asia which is a major non-quota market.

"As for the question whether India would be able to meet the target, all that can be said is that it may just scrapethrough" says the Texprocil official.

Meanwhile, according to a report by the International Trade Commission of the US, the country's textile sector has bright prospects for growth in the coming decade though it was currently passing through a bad patch.

India's textile and apparel exports are likely to touch $16 billion by the year 2000 as against $9 billion during 1995-96 and this is likely to attract potential US and other international investors to enter the rapidly growing Indian textile sector, the ITC predicted in a study.

At present, US provides only limited opportunities for direct exports from the country because of quantitative restrictions on a number of products. However, many US firms are likely to enter into joint ventures with Indian mills to meet not only the domestic demand for quality apparel fabrics, home furnishing, specialised fabrics and branded apparels, but also to push export.