MEPZ deputy development commissioner, T Henry Franklin attributed the fall in the exports to two units Well-Knit Apparels and R Design which were on strike and had stopped production for a period of 35 days due to some wage differences in the former and disputes among the employees in the latter. But according to him the differences have been ironed out and the units are confident of overcoming the problems caused due to the strike. The target for the current year has been fixed at Rs 650 crore. Last year the exports from MEPZ had a severe setback due to the closure of JTS Technology, a major electronic hard disk drive manufacturing company. Exports suffered abig setback declining by 53.34 per cent to Rs 536.8 crore over the export performance of Rs 1003 crore during the year 1997-98.

Official figures of the first quarter of this fiscal year 1999-2000 from MEPZ show that exports of major industries such as textiles and garments have declined to Rs 43.27 crore compared to the first quarter performance of Rs 62.07 crore of 1998-99. Hardware industry which has been a major contributor to the total export performance till the year 1997-98 had taken a severe beating with exports amounting to a mere Rs 5 crore from the previous high of around Rs 11 crore during the quarter ended June 1998. Other industries such as engineering, and sports, gem and jewellery and food and agro products have contributed around Rs 66 crore.