Slowdown in the world’s largest economy coupled with the appreciating rupee against the US greenback has tied the Indian silk exporters in a knot. Having shown 15.4% decline in exports for the first seven months (April-Oct period) of the current fiscal, market analysts anticipate that the silk industry may fail to touch the Rs 3,770-crore export target set by the Union ministry of textiles for the financial year ending March 31, 2008.
Trade sources said the exports would show 15-20% decline in the current fiscal against the estimated target. For the seven-month period ended October 2007, silk exports were at Rs 1,588.92 crore or only 42% of the set target for the entire fiscal, down 15.4% over Rs 1,877.43 crore reported during the same period in the previous fiscal.
Sample this: As per the data available with the Central Silk Board, silk exports to the US alone fell by 35% to Rs 339 crore from Rs 525 crore during the corresponding period of the previous year. Though the US continued to be the biggest market with 21.4% of export revenues coming from it, it declined from the 28% that it contributed in the previous corresponding period. The UK (13.9%), the UAE (9.9%), Honduras (6.6%) and Italy (5.1%) were the other main importers of Indian silk in value terms and along with the US accounted for Rs 905.30 crore or 57% of the total exports for the seven-month period.
In fact, all the major silk products showed a decline in exports with natural silk yarn, fabrics and made-ups showing 24% dip to Rs 876.90 crore from Rs 1,154.44 crore, while silk carpet shipment was down by 63% to Rs 23.46 crore from Rs 64.47 crore during the corresponding previous period.
The only solace was in readymade garments that showed a marginal increase of 5.7% to record Rs 681 crore.
In the meantime, the Silk Board has already initiated steps to expand the domestic market to offset the export losses. It has already tied-up with Tirupur Exporters Association (TEA) and National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) to create a new business segment in the domestic and international silk market by coming out with silk materials in knitted farm.