Sri Lanka apparel exporters urged to get closer to markets

 A European expert has advised Sri Lanka's apparel industry to get closer to their markets and focus on a limited number of customers to survive the threats posed by growing competition and rising costs.

Michiel Scheffer, who has been a consultant to the European Union on the GSP market access scheme, said buyers were no longer travelling as much as they did to visit suppliers and instead expected business to come to them.
The island's garments exporters needed to acquire better marketing skills, he told a meeting of exporters.

It was organised by the Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), an umbrella industry organisation of manufacturers and the Sri Lanka Apparel Marketers Alumni, consisting of professionals trained by the Sri Lanka branch of the Chartered Institute of Marketing for the apparel export industry.

"We're going through rougher times," Scheffer said, noting that the financial crisis that began in the United States was spreading and affecting the credit availability to companies, resulting in a tightening of their finances.

The availability of materials was getting shorter in supply and prices rising.

"There is a need to increase production of fibre to bridge the fibre supply gap. We don't have enough material to cater to world demand and may need to use other materials."

Scheffer, who is a professor of fashion and textile management at the University of Netherlands, said the profile of buyers had changed.
He described buyers as having previously been 'hunters' who roamed the world seeking out suppliers but were now more 'reapers', preferring to wait for suppliers to come to them.

"Buyers do not understand as much about making things as buyers did previously."

Increasingly, he said, retailers were looking for partnerships with firms who are developing their own designs and can offer a wider service than being mere contract manufacturers.

This made marketing skills more important as it allowed manufacturers to project themselves better and justify higher prices.

He also stressed the importance of 'narrow casting' - of manufacturers following a limited number of clients rather than trying to cast their net wide.

Marketing skills, he said, would also help Sri Lanka's clothing industry, one of its top export earners, become less dependent on the GSP Plus scheme which gives duty free access to European markets.

The industry is worried about the loss of GSP Plus, which comes up for renewal by year's end.

The EU has hinted that might not extend the scheme owing to concerns about human right abuses by government forces in their campaign against Tamil Tiger rebels.

The government has rejected the allegations but also advised the apparel industry not to depend on renewal of the GSP scheme.