Export Strategy of Apparel Products

It has been observed that EU countries get higher unit value realization (UVR) in their apparel products export by exporting high value added/differentiated products. The most valuable activities in the apparel value chain are not related to manufacturing per se, but are found in the design, branding, marketing, etc. among other activities within the products.

The study has been undertaken to analyze the export of Indian apparel products from the point of view of total export value and unit value realization (UVR). The study focused on top 10 apparel products being exported from India, which constitute more than 50 per cent of the total value of India's export of apparel products. A time series data has been prepared to get the picture of export of top 10 apparel products from India to the World. For these products, competitive positions of top 10 exporting countries for these products were obtained. Comparative calculation of trade value, quantity and unit value realization (UVR) were carried out for all the top exporters including India in each of these top 10 products. Further, in these top 10 exporting products, the analysis was carried out for India's export destination markets for the years from 2004 to 2009. To know the competitiveness in the export of these 10 products, Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) values of these 10 products have been calculated for these products. Analysis shows that Indian exporters are not able to get high UVR for their exports. The study attempted to find destination markets to get high UVR based export for Indian exporters for enhancing export volume of these products to achieve growth. The study is concluded with the suggestions from Indian exporters to improve upon competitiveness by concentrating on export of high value-added products.