A Sukumaran, Chairman, Joint Apparel Association Forum estimates a 25 per cent decline in apparel exports this year. Addressing a media round table conference in Colombo, Sukuraman said he expects further demand contractions that could result in reductions in apparel exports by an additional 30-40 percent after June, in its best-case scenario.

He said that COVID 19 affects the apparel supply chain, the export market and due to that the industry is unable to fulfill certain obligations. His Minuwangoda factory is functioning on a small scale even after detecting the first COVID 19 patient in October. His company is looking after all employees and police, CID, PHIs, Labor Department and other relevant parties are closely watching our operations, which follow all Health Ministry protocols.

Noel Piyathilake, Chairman, JAAF said, the disruption of the supply chain due to the global outbreak of the virus affected exporters severely in the first half of this year. There are 81 factories out of which 37 are direct exporters and 41 subcontractors, which provide 25000 employment and 15 percent export earnings. The SME sector is also supporting the informal sector as well.

Sri Lanka last year earned $ 5.3 billion from apparel exports, an increase of 5.1 per cent from 2018. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic the industry originally expected a 6 per cent increase in exports for 2020. However, its export earnings from apparel and textiles in October declined by 18.93 per cent to $356.52 million and by 21 percent to $3.6 billion in the first 10 months of 2020 from a year earlier.