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| Tuesday, 13 July 2004 |
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Phasing out of MFA: Lankan entrepreneurs should take cue from Nepal by Shirajiv Sirimane
Sri Lankan entrepreneurs in the Apparel sector should take a cue from the Nepal garment sector and take steps to counter the adverse effects from the Multi Fibre Agreement (MFA) which comes into effect from December 31, 2004, resulting in the abolition of the quota system. Countries would now have to find their own orders. According to the Sri Lanka and Nepal representative for the world's largest Apparel Trade show, Men Apparel Guild in California (MAGIC) Hiran Jayasinghe the Nepal government will be sponsoring 18 companies for the MAGIC trade show. He said that the Nepal government has hand picked 18 companies and would be paying 50 percent of their expenses to attend this event while the Garment Association Nepal (GAN) would be sponsoring the balance. "None of the participating companies has to pay any money to attend MAGIC," he said. Last year only one of the garment companies from Nepal attended MAGIC and it is really pleasing to have 18 participants this year. Due to the keen interest shown by Nepal, there would be a special pavilion at MAGIC to showcase their products, he said. The total export value of Nepal garment exports was US$ 133 million last year and the government hopes to increase this to US$ 200 million. The Nepal government is hoping to make MAGIC the platform to increase their exports. There are over 100,000 people, the majority of them women involved in the Nepal garment sector where there are over 100 major factories. "Due to this factor the Nepal government had requested USA to consider extending their garment quota for a further three years," he said. Apparel exports accounted for over 50 per cent of Sri Lanka's total exports in 2003 (US$ 2241 million) and continued to be the leading export sector. USA remained the major buyer of Sri Lankan apparel with a 64 per cent of market share," he said. Previous governments have ignored the warning of the Forthcoming Multi Fibre Agreement, (MFA) said the Chairman/Managing Director Tri- Star Apparel Exports (Pte) Ltd., Kumar Devapura. He said that with the MFA ceasing over 4,000 garment companies in Sri Lanka would be forced to shut down and nearly 50,000 people would be out of jobs. He said that they made a series of representations to the previous government and the response was nil. The MFA was announced over five years ago and Sri Lanka did not take it seriously. He said that the Bangladesh government had identified this and had invested US$ 100 million to introduce new technology for their garment factories. The government had also encouraged their factory owners to attend international exhibitions such as MAGIC, the world's largest apparel show in US and other events. The MAGIC Show is the largest and most comprehensive apparel market in the world, attracting an average of 80,000 more than 2,800 exhibitors and 21,000 product lines. MAGIC is the only Apparel Trade show accepted by the US Department of Commerce and has over 85,000 buyers with buying power of US$ 85 Billion and 79% of them place purchase orders. Sri Lanka's Apparel exports accounted for over 50 (US$ 2,241 million) per cent of Sri Lanka's total exports in 2003 and continues to be the leading export sector. USA remained the major buyer of Sri Lanka's apparel with a 64 per cent market share. The Export Development Board hopes to achieve US$ 4.5 billion exports by 2007. |
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