A new vision to help Sri Lankan apparel rise to the challenges of 2022
14 January 2022, Mumbai:
Things are not going to get easier in 2022. So the apparel industry will just have to get stronger.
Despite having faced down another tumultuous year, the Sri Lankan apparel industry has shown remarkable resilience in 2021, and we believe the advances we have made over the past year have put the entire sector in a much stronger position to weather the escalating challenges of 2022.
A review of the data from 2021 and the measures that firms in the industry have taken indicate how the industry is poised.
Following in the wake of unprecedented economic disruptions for Sri Lanka – and the rest of the world – caused by the second and third waves of the Covid-19 pandemic we now see some persistent uncertainty around prospects for 2022.
Driving this volatility so far is the emergence of Omicron which is reportedly the most highly transmissible variant of Covid-19, and in the backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions between the US, and China and Russia. If any one of these factors is exacerbated, further disruptions to global trade are inevitable. Consider exports.
In pre-pandemic 2019, apparel exports amounted to $5.2 billion 1 , almost 48 per cent of all merchandise exports (which makes it a crucial contributor to trade and external finances). In 2020, the pandemic’s spread led to a steep decline in trade and travel, and ultimately global GDP; no country was spared.
Sri Lanka’s garment exports also declined sharply in 2020; nationally enforced lockdowns hit production, and order cancellations were high. Exports fell by almost a quarter (more than 24 per cent) to $3.93 billion. In 2021, garment exports jumped back up by 21.5 per cent at September-end to $3.54 billion 2 .
They will fall just short of the targeted $5,1 billion. The remarkable progress was made possible by an accelerated vaccination programme with the support of the government and the logistical capability of our military.
The Joint Apparel Associations Forum of Sri Lanka (JAAFSL), an apex body of apparel industry associations, played a crucial coordinating role.
For business owners, worker safety is a high priority. Factories and places also put safety protocols, redesigned shop floors to enable social distancing, strictly monitored masking, personal protection, and employee behaviour. Compliance was strictly implemented with surprise checks by officials from the Ministries of Labour and Health.
Yet, during the course of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, business owners were faced with false accusations that workers were not being paid and were instead being laid them off by the thousands.
Contributed by: A. Sukumaran – Chairman, Joint Apparel Association Forum
