452
Sewing Success?
Figure 15.2 Top Five Sri Lankan Apparel Export Markets, 2000 and 2009 5.2
12.6 33.1
61.7
51.4
36.0 EU-15
United States
others
Source: United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database (UN Comtrade). Note: Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (HS) 1992: Codes 61 and 62; exports represent country imports from Sri Lanka. EU-15 = the 15 member states of the European Union (EU) as of December 31, 2003, before the new member states joined the EU: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
only 0.2 percent of total apparel exports went to the region in 2009, largely to India.
Export Products Knit products have increased in importance throughout the 1990s and 2000s; today knit and woven account for an equal share of total apparel exports. Sri Lanka’s apparel exports, woven and knit, are concentrated in relatively few products; however, Sri Lanka’s product concentration is lower than in most Asian competitor countries. The top five product categories accounted for 41 percent of total EU-15 apparel exports in 2009 and for 48 percent in the U.S. market; the top 10 product categories, for 57.4 percent and 65.6 percent, respectively (tables 15.6 and 15.7). Product concentration levels have increased since 2000. Six products are in the top 10 list of the EU-15 and the United States. In the EU-15 and the U.S. market, cotton products dominate. Of the top 10 export products to the EU-15, 6 are cotton based, and of the U.S. top 10, 7 are cotton based. Knits constitute the majority of the top 10 products in the EU-15 (7) and the U.S. (6) markets. However, men’s and women’s cotton trousers constitute the top two products to the U.S. markets, accounting together for 31 percent of total U.S. exports in 2009. These two products are also important in the EU-15 market, where they rank third and fouth and together accounted for 27 percent of total apparel