Sri Lanka Design Festival will boost apparel industry – EDB Chief

Thursday, 4 November 2010 02:59 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Sri Lanka Design Festival (SLDF) scheduled to kick start on 11 November will cost the organisers approximately Rs. 50 million to stage the event, Chairman of Export Development Board said yesterday.

By Cheranka Mendis

The six-day long event which aims at taking the local apparel wear to the world arena coupled with value addition such as designing and branding sits heavy on the budget of the organisers but will incur long term benefits for the industry on the whole. The benefits will come in many ways such as gaining reputation for the works of designers among the top notch businessmen in the global apparel world.

Some 80 retailers, buyers, designers and journalists are said to be planning to fly down to Colombo over the next few days to participate in the event. Chairman Janaka Rathnayake said that among the buyers’ representatives the likes of Marks & Spencer, D&G, Top Shop, and Burberry among many others would attend the Festival. “There will be more buyers and designers this time than last year and we hope to appeal to a larger network of top apparel businessmen from the international community,” Rathnayake stressed.

He asserted that this time around the SLDF will not only be bigger and better and add a local touch by including a crafts village funded by the EDB but will also represent the best model of private public partnerships (PPP). “There is an academic institute — Academy of Design, there is a government organization — EDB and a blue chip private sector company — MAS. This is a good combination and a great model to be followed on hereafter,” he said.

On the apparel sector itself, Rathnayake said that even with the chaos of the loss of GSP+, the sector has been doing great this year, even better than 2009. Admitting that the first six months of the year saw a five per cent negative growth in the local apparel export market, within the last two months the impact has fallen to a negative growth of two per cent. “There is a definite growth in the market over last year. In fact we are looking forward to seeing a breakeven point by December this year,” he added.

Apparel export statistics provided by the EDB shows exports to the value of USD 2071 million within the January- August period this year. The 2009 export figure for apparel was USD 3263 million.

There is no drastic impact or concrete problem born out of the GSP+ issue. As Sri Lanka caters to the up market quality product market/niche market, the end user will not compromise with the products, he said. He also added that no employment loss has been seen locally due to the issue. “Big companies are now on the move to acquire small factories that are making loses,” and currently there is employment opportunity for 5000-7500 people in the apparel market, Rathnayake said.