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Worrisome drop in exports of dhoties, sarees

M D Dewani

Indians settled abroad seem to be surprisingly turning to dhoties, sarees lungies etc imported from other countries. This may not augur well for our exports of such traditional products, since their market cannot be enlarged, easily. Unless a serious study of the causes for the decline in our exports of such products is undertaken at the earliest and steps are initiated to stem this rot, it may be difficult for the country to sustain these exports and step up our overall cotton fabric exports in the coming years.

If one goes by the statistics compiled by the Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (Texprocil), one may find that exports of dhoties from India in 2003-04 were of the order of 297.57 million kg (valued at Rs 15794.98 million), but they plunged to 243.03 million kg (Rs 13570.28 million) in 2004-05, indicating a drop of nearly 18.32 per cent in volume terms. It may be difficult to assume that Indians abroad might have suddenly reduced their use of dhoties to that extent in a single year. It is quite likely that they might be turning to dhoties imported from other countries. Among cotton fabrics, dhoties represent the biggest export item both in volume and value terms. A drop in export of such a traditional product is bound to cause concern to the industry as well as to the exporting community.

A similar situation is noticed in sarees as well. India exported sarees totalling 30.30 million kg (valued at Rs 1623.61 million) in 2003-04, but cotton saree exports from India droped sharpely in the following year to just Rs 18.38 million kg (Rs 1393.73 million). Of course, sarees are worn not only by Indian ladies but by some from other Asian countries as well. The sharp drop of 39.50 per cent in the offtake of sarees from India by other countries may imply that women abroad might be preferrig to buy sarees imported from other countries. For, it would be difficult to accept that they might have reduced consumption of sarees to that extent in just one year. It may be interesting to note that some textile exporting countries are manufacturing sarees, though they have little domestic market for these. These are mainly meant for exports to their countries, where Asians are settled in substantial numbers. The same is the case with lungies which are quite popular in India. When Indians settle down in other countries, many of them continue to make use of lungies for the nightwear. It is possible that they might be turning to lungies imported from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, etc. This is reflected in the precipitate fall in exports of lungies from India. For instance, shipments of lungies from India amounted to 131.63 million kg (valued at Rs 7199.65 million), but in 2004-05 they collapsed to 92.01 million kg (Rs 5016.17 million) indicating a drop of about 30 per cent. It may be difficult to believe that they reduced the use of lungies to that extent in just one year. Possibly they might be buying more lungies imported from other countries.

Indian cotton shirtings also seem to be losing ground in the overseas markets. This is evident from the fact that while exports of cotton shirtings from India totalled 82.55 million kg (Rs 3810.72 million) in 2003-04, they came down to 63.64 million kg (Rs 3356.40 million) in 2004-05. This may imply that we may not be competitive either in quality or price or both. Though India has set up some denim manufacturing capacity mainly with an eye on the export markets, performance of our denim on the export front seems to have been dismal in 2004-05. This is evident from the fact that while shipments of denim in 2003-04 totalled 107.67 million kg (Rs 8059.22 million, they dropped to 88.91 million kg (Rs 7592.77 million) in 2004-05.

Though we continue to claim that India was a pioneer in textile production, but many countries are now doing much better job in this field. Actual exports of all types of cotton fabrics from the country taken together, declined from 800.23 million in 2003-04 kg to 644.10 million kg in 2004-05. In value-term also they were down by 11.10 per cent from Rs 46446.40 million to Rs 41645.68 million.

When the time for elimination of quote system was coming nearer, hopes were expressed in some quarters that India would be able to push up its textile exports substantially following the removal of quota system from 2005. However, many observers now realise that India has missed the bus to avail of this opportunity provided by the withdrawal of restrictions on global textile business.

It was a known fact that quota restrictions on textile exports would come to an end with the expiry of 2004, as a decision on this matter was taken at the international level 10 years ago, giving every country enough time to adjust to the new situation. It was clear that this opportunity to export freely to overseas markets would be available not only to India, but to all countries of the world. From this it clearly followed that in the new era of free trade, the fittest could survive and stand to benefit. Countries like China, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh, etc started modernising their industries to stand in competition when quota restriction would be lifted. India had enough time to do so, but not much attention was paid to this either by the Indian industry or by the government. The result is that we are finding it difficult to benefit from the quota free regime.