Other destinations have shown a mixed trend. While there has been some improvement in despatches to a few other countries in the Far East, those to Hong Kong, China and Singapore have been slightly lower.

So far as other countries are concerned, exports to Bangladesh, Russia, Israel, Dubai, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, Poland, Nepal etc have been positive, but exports to S Mauritius, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Turkey etc have shown a negative trend.

Overall exports of cotton yarn from the country in the first quarter of 1999-2000 however have shown an improvement of 21.30 million kg (18.03 per cent) to 139.46 million kg from 118.16 million kg.

To what extent this may be considered satisfactory performance is another question. It might beinteresting to note in this context but for the rise of 33.64 million kg in export to S Korea, overall exports would have shown negative performance.

It is difficult to say whether S Korea will maintain the same tempo of purchases during the rest of the year. Some leading exporters are not sure about this. They point out that currently the offtake by S Korea has somewhat slowed.

Besides, it is now offering just about US$2.50 per kg for 30s yarn. Earlier it was offering better prices. Under the situation, it is difficult to say whether the overall improvement is exports of yarn seen in the first quarter of 1999-2000 will be sustained in the remaining months of the year.