Rishad, titans to reveal Lanka’s int’l apparel secrets today at CBF

Wednesday, 13 November 2013 00:24 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Lanka’s powerful forex earner moving beyond OEM
“Our success reasons are not only earnings and branding”: Rishad

Secrets behind Sri Lanka’s decades-long apparel success will be unveiled at the CHOGM Biz Forum in Colombo today. “Ours is a success story not only due to the heavy foreign exchange earnings and the global branding we see today. In fact it is a successful case study of moving away from a quota-based ‘stitching economy’ to one that is now globally competitive on its own efforts. Tomorrow we will tell you what these other efforts are,” said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen yesterday.

Bathiudeen was speaking to a group of his top officials and advisors during a special meeting held at the Ministry on its CHOGM-related event preparation on 12 November. The 13 November morning session on textiles and apparel at the Commonwealth Business Forum at Cinnamon Grand will feature Ashroff Omar (CEO, Brandix), Mark Green (Executive Vice President of Global Supply Chain PVH Corporation) and M.P.T. Cooray, (Secretary General, Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) making their case with Bathiudeen. This is the first time that such an eminent panel on the globally-renowned Lankan apparel sector is simultaneously sitting together. “We have come a long way in our apparel journey - from the Original Design Manufacturing (ODM) stage to an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to the world market. But our apparel journey will continue to grow and grow. We are expecting to see how we turn our next page,” Bathiudeen stressed. In 2012, the largest share of export earnings was from the apparel sector – consisting 40% of the total. In 2012 US$ 2.83 b apparel earnings, $ 1.53 b was from the US and $ 1.86 b was from the EU, despite the challenging situation in these markets. Current export trends show that apparel exports could reach $ 4 b by the end of this year.