India Garment Exporters See Japan As A New Market To Be Developed.

In order to cope with the sluggish export of garments, today, the India Garment Export Promotion Committee (AEPC) has formed a 7 delegation to Japan for a week's new market development tour.

Japan is the fourth largest clothing importing country in the world.

The exporter delegation, led by Mr. AEPC Rakesh Vaid, will visit Tokyo and Osaka with a view to understanding the composition of the local imports.

In 2007, imports of garments from Japan amounted to US $22 billion 600 million, mainly from China.

Imports from India amounted to US $151 million, a decrease of 11.6% over last year.

Mr. Vaid said that last year, India exported 131 million dollars worth of woven garments to Japan, and knitted garments valued at US $20 million.

The proportion of China in the Japanese import market is 93%, while that in India is only 0.3%.

Due to the serious economic downturn in the US and Europe, exports of garments to Japan will soar.

Japan is the fourth largest clothing importing country in the world, ranking only 8.14% of the world's imports after the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom.

Mr. Vaid said that AEPC also plans to hold large-scale exhibitions in Japan and vigorously publicize the strength of India's clothing industry.

About 50 major exporters will attend the exhibition.

But the date of the exhibition has not yet been finalized.

AEPC will invite Japanese designers to work in India so that they can cooperate with India enterprises and exporters.

AEPC represents more than 8000 small and medium-sized exporters and exporters of the India textile industry.

2007-08 India exported $9 billion 700 million garments.

Nearly 60% of exports are exported to the United States, Britain, France and Germany.