According to Sri Lanka’s “Daily Finance” report on April 10, facing an unprecedented downturn and expected losses of more than 1.5 billion US dollars, Sri Lanka’s garment industry yesterday called on the government to listen to measures aimed at mitigating Proposals on the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the garment industry include restarting factories as soon as possible, providing state support to companies with less than 3,000 employees, suspending EPF and ETF payments, and expanding working capital.
The United Garment Association of Sri Lanka calls on the government to take immediate measures to support the garment industry. As Sri Lanka’s second largest source of foreign exchange earnings, the Sri Lankan garment industry provides 400,000 jobs and earned a foreign exchange revenue of $5.6 billion. The United Garment Association of Sri Lanka expects Sri Lanka’s garment exports to fall by US$1.5 billion in the three months to June compared with the previous financial year. The losses don’t stop there. After June, further shrinking demand could lead to another 30-40% reduction in apparel exports in the best case scenario.
The United Clothing Association warned that although most companies have pledged to pay March salaries, working capital will be severely reduced from the end of April due to massive cancellations of orders. The vast majority of companies will struggle to pay salaries.
The United Garment Association said the government has taken some measures to support the garment industry, but called on the government to introduce more relief measures. The first is to reopen garment factories as soon as possible and restore full production capacity to avoid losing business to competitive countries such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Second, the government provides support to help employees of companies with less than 3,000 employees maintain their lives. The third is to call on the government to suspend the Employee Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees Trust Fund (ETF) contributions of employers and employees for 6 months. The fourth is to help enterprises raise working capital.
