Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors

By M H Ahssan

Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.

“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.

According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.

Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.

“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.

Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.

Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.

Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors

By M H Ahssan

Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.

“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.

According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.

Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.

“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.

Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.

Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.

Indian garment exporters may lose out to low-cost competitors

By M H Ahssan

Garment exports from India show little signs of picking up this winter-autumn season, following a gradual shift of international buyers towards low-cost neighbouring countries. International bookings of garments have dropped sharply, although exporters slashed prices by 11-12%.

“Major global buyers like Wal-Mart, JC Penney, Li & Fung, Gap and Target have indicated plans to cut offtake from India by 12-15% this year, while they are increasing their offtake in neighbouring countries,” said Rahul Mehta, president of the clothing manufacturing association of India. Countries like Vietnam and Bangladesh have lower import duties and cost of production enabling them to offer more competitive prices, said industry officials.

According to the industry analysts, garment exports from India would be lower than Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and Combodia. It is expected that India would end up exporting garments worth $9 billion this fiscal, down by almost 10% compared with the last year. Bangladesh is expected to export worth $12 billion garments.

Global buyers have also cut down purchases in the wake of a global meltdown and recessionary trends in western economies. Premal Udani, managing director of Kaytee Corporation said that the industry is likely to face further challenges, if the winterautumn order booking fails to meet expectations.

“Currently, bookings are 20-25% lower than the same period last year and sentiments are weak ahead because of gloomy outlook of textile industry,” said Mr Udani.

Two relief packages and a 2% interest rate subvention in pre-and post-shipment credit up to September 2009, seem to offer little relief yet to the industry.

Exports said that they had hoped for sops like scrapping of the fringe benefit tax and higher duty drawback rates. However, any further relief packages have been ruled out before Parliamentary elections, said a government official.

Urban Indians simply refuse to feel the pinch

By Prateek Sinha

Call it irrational exuberance or rational expectations . Urban Indians continue to be reasonably optimistic about the state of the economy and as high as 75% of them expect their family’s financial situation to remain stable or improve over the next 12 months. This is so, even as a majority of them acknowledge that the economy is doing badly at present. Expectations of this kind determine spending behaviour and that is why the pervasively gloomy mood in most developed markets has industry and economists worried. The mood in India, in contrast, is positive, finds a 14-city survey of 2,900 reasonably well-informed and well-off people. The survey was conducted by Futures Company and TNS Global as part of its ‘Feeling the Pinch’ series, previous editions of which covered the UK and the US. About one in every three persons in urban India is not worried about economy at all.

A little over 53% expect their finances to remain the same while over 21% expect their finances to improve over the next 12 months. However, worries about their financial stability have risen over the past three months. Less than 20% said that they are facing financial difficulty, while more than 38% said they were financially comfortable or well off and 41% said they have enough to make ends meet. That confidence emanates from the level of savings respondents have accumulated over the years, says Rima Gupta, Country Head, The Futures Company. After all, with the economic boom of the past few years, more than 50% feel they were better off than they were three years ago.

But that’s the broad trend. The survey of people in the SEC A, B, and C categories (socio-economic classes that are clerical/supervisory staff and above), conducted in January, however, saw divergent trends. Individuals in metro cities were slightly more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their non-metro counterparts. That can probably be attributed to the impact of external factors on metro residents. They were more affected by the stock market collapse, the Satyam episode and the Mumbai terror attacks. In contrast, people in the smaller towns were more preoccupied with mundane matters such as meeting expenses for basic necessities, impact of prices and paying for children’s education. They have gained from inflation cooling off. About 71% of those living in metros said the economy was doing badly or fairly badly compared 61% in the non-metros. Further, 36% in non-metros felt the economy was performing well or fairly well against 28% in the metros.

Yet, the sudden change in the economic climate in the country had majority of the people concerned about their financial situation. Only a little more than 13% said they had not become more worried about their financial situation over the three months preceding the survey. The anxiety level was higher among the non-metro dwellers, with nearly 64% saying they somewhat more or a lot more worried now, perhaps due to the nature of their concerns and greater fear of losing their job due to the slowdown. Small-town folk came across as more confident, with more than 82% saying their family’s financial position would be about the same or better over the next 12 months.

Urban Indians simply refuse to feel the pinch

By Prateek Sinha

Call it irrational exuberance or rational expectations . Urban Indians continue to be reasonably optimistic about the state of the economy and as high as 75% of them expect their family’s financial situation to remain stable or improve over the next 12 months. This is so, even as a majority of them acknowledge that the economy is doing badly at present. Expectations of this kind determine spending behaviour and that is why the pervasively gloomy mood in most developed markets has industry and economists worried. The mood in India, in contrast, is positive, finds a 14-city survey of 2,900 reasonably well-informed and well-off people. The survey was conducted by Futures Company and TNS Global as part of its ‘Feeling the Pinch’ series, previous editions of which covered the UK and the US. About one in every three persons in urban India is not worried about economy at all.

A little over 53% expect their finances to remain the same while over 21% expect their finances to improve over the next 12 months. However, worries about their financial stability have risen over the past three months. Less than 20% said that they are facing financial difficulty, while more than 38% said they were financially comfortable or well off and 41% said they have enough to make ends meet. That confidence emanates from the level of savings respondents have accumulated over the years, says Rima Gupta, Country Head, The Futures Company. After all, with the economic boom of the past few years, more than 50% feel they were better off than they were three years ago.

But that’s the broad trend. The survey of people in the SEC A, B, and C categories (socio-economic classes that are clerical/supervisory staff and above), conducted in January, however, saw divergent trends. Individuals in metro cities were slightly more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their non-metro counterparts. That can probably be attributed to the impact of external factors on metro residents. They were more affected by the stock market collapse, the Satyam episode and the Mumbai terror attacks. In contrast, people in the smaller towns were more preoccupied with mundane matters such as meeting expenses for basic necessities, impact of prices and paying for children’s education. They have gained from inflation cooling off. About 71% of those living in metros said the economy was doing badly or fairly badly compared 61% in the non-metros. Further, 36% in non-metros felt the economy was performing well or fairly well against 28% in the metros.

Yet, the sudden change in the economic climate in the country had majority of the people concerned about their financial situation. Only a little more than 13% said they had not become more worried about their financial situation over the three months preceding the survey. The anxiety level was higher among the non-metro dwellers, with nearly 64% saying they somewhat more or a lot more worried now, perhaps due to the nature of their concerns and greater fear of losing their job due to the slowdown. Small-town folk came across as more confident, with more than 82% saying their family’s financial position would be about the same or better over the next 12 months.

Urban Indians simply refuse to feel the pinch

By Prateek Sinha

Call it irrational exuberance or rational expectations . Urban Indians continue to be reasonably optimistic about the state of the economy and as high as 75% of them expect their family’s financial situation to remain stable or improve over the next 12 months. This is so, even as a majority of them acknowledge that the economy is doing badly at present. Expectations of this kind determine spending behaviour and that is why the pervasively gloomy mood in most developed markets has industry and economists worried. The mood in India, in contrast, is positive, finds a 14-city survey of 2,900 reasonably well-informed and well-off people. The survey was conducted by Futures Company and TNS Global as part of its ‘Feeling the Pinch’ series, previous editions of which covered the UK and the US. About one in every three persons in urban India is not worried about economy at all.

A little over 53% expect their finances to remain the same while over 21% expect their finances to improve over the next 12 months. However, worries about their financial stability have risen over the past three months. Less than 20% said that they are facing financial difficulty, while more than 38% said they were financially comfortable or well off and 41% said they have enough to make ends meet. That confidence emanates from the level of savings respondents have accumulated over the years, says Rima Gupta, Country Head, The Futures Company. After all, with the economic boom of the past few years, more than 50% feel they were better off than they were three years ago.

But that’s the broad trend. The survey of people in the SEC A, B, and C categories (socio-economic classes that are clerical/supervisory staff and above), conducted in January, however, saw divergent trends. Individuals in metro cities were slightly more pessimistic about the economic outlook than their non-metro counterparts. That can probably be attributed to the impact of external factors on metro residents. They were more affected by the stock market collapse, the Satyam episode and the Mumbai terror attacks. In contrast, people in the smaller towns were more preoccupied with mundane matters such as meeting expenses for basic necessities, impact of prices and paying for children’s education. They have gained from inflation cooling off. About 71% of those living in metros said the economy was doing badly or fairly badly compared 61% in the non-metros. Further, 36% in non-metros felt the economy was performing well or fairly well against 28% in the metros.

Yet, the sudden change in the economic climate in the country had majority of the people concerned about their financial situation. Only a little more than 13% said they had not become more worried about their financial situation over the three months preceding the survey. The anxiety level was higher among the non-metro dwellers, with nearly 64% saying they somewhat more or a lot more worried now, perhaps due to the nature of their concerns and greater fear of losing their job due to the slowdown. Small-town folk came across as more confident, with more than 82% saying their family’s financial position would be about the same or better over the next 12 months.

Gold prices surging toward Rs 16k level

By M H Ahssan

Surging gold prices set yet another record of Rs 15,800 per 10 gram in the national capital and Rs 15,925 in Kolkata per 10 gram on Thursday in line with the surging global bullion markets on speculation that the global recession will deepen further. The precious metal recorded fresh gains of Rs 50 to Rs 15,800 a level never seen before after poor economic data of Russia and Japan raised concerns of a growing malaise of global recession. Jewellers and market analysts said the demand of the yellow metal picked up after the global equity and forex markets dropped in the recent past.

They said shaky investors find no other option but to park their funds in the precious metals while physical buying for the current marriage season declined substantially. “We do not see any customers these days as surging gold prices cooled down the demand for jewellery in this marriage season,” said a Delhi-based jeweller Gaurav Anand. A similar trend in other regional bullion markets in the country also dampened trading sentiment to a great extent. In Kolkata the gold opened at a record high of Rs 15,925 per 10 gram.

Gold futures break all records
Gold futures continued hitting a new high for the third day on Thursday at Rs 15,712 per 10 gram in early trading on the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX), on continued buying on speculations that the global recession will deepen further. The far-month June contract for gold surged by Rs 138 or 0.88 per cent to touch a new high of Rs 15,712 per 10 gram at the MCX counter.

The contract clocked business volume of 268 lots (one lot is equal to one kg) in early trade. Gold for April month contract rose by Rs 145 or 0.93 per cent to Rs 15,706 per 10 gram, clocking a business turnover of 4,665 lots. Firming trends in spot markets on account of marriage season also influenced metal prices. At Chennai, gold opened Rs 235 higher to Rs 15,725 per 10 gram. “Continued investment buying and break of $980 an ounce level, an important resistance level, supported the bull-run in the precious metal,” Galipelli Harish of Karvy Comtrade said.

In the global markets gold touched a high of $988.40 an ounce on Wednesday.

Lend a shoulder, Shah Rukh Khan

By M H Ahssan

Celebrity haemorrhage has led to a stroke of good luck for the rest of us. The frequency of VIP illnesses means that schools may no longer need to impart anatomy lessons, and even medical colleges could become as disposable as a needle. The media has stepped into the role of the conventional classroom, teaching us everything we never wanted to learn about every current hiccup in the VIP body.

The latest case is that of Shah Rukh Khan. While lesser mortals make do with a simple pulled tendon, he gets some posh supraspinatus tendonistis. But, ordinary folks still score because the ensuing mass of information in print, on TV, and the crosssection of Net dissections, enables all of us to bone up on every disgusting detail about this muscular affliction. Surgeon ne bana di joint, and we receive a hotshoulder lesson ek dum free of cost — no tendons attached. Actually, SRK is a mobile classroom whether immobilised on an operating table, or merely hamstrung by an armsling or the neck-brace he has long needed for his hard-pressed back. Neosix-packers and the Akshay breed of DIY action-heroes must pay the price of push-upping their body too far.

Of course, Amitabh Bachchan towers over the star classroom as much as he does on screen; in fact, he first triggered these media medical lessons, way back in 1982, after the near-fatal accident on the sets of Coolie. Thank Bhagwan, he emerged alive and still-kicking off the competition from that illness, but not before he had given the whole world a crash course in myasthenia gravis. It wasn’t some ‘Munnabhai MBBS’ sham. Within days of hearing about it for the very first time, newspapers had taught us enough to max a medical-school paper on it.

Then, in 2005, our AB was back in the OT and our prayers, this time for diverticulitis. So now everyone knows the intestinal twists and turns of the intestine, which cause this painful condition. I owe him a Big B-size thank you. After those media lessons, my own attacks of the dreaded D are no longer rudely laughed off with, “Rubbish! Diverticulitis sounds like one of those words you make up in your column.”

It is not only in our stars that we are understudy surgeons. Sachin Tendulkar’s elbow, for instance, made us experts in that field in orthospeedic time. However, the greatest gurus remain our politicians. The range and frequency of their ailments could provide the layperson with not just post-graduate degrees, but the whole doctorate. No surprise here. Gray’s Anatomy is best studied via our grey-haired netas who continue to be at a premium despite all the lip-service to youth. In fact, power/elections inject them with a personal stimulus package, as can be clearly seen in the case of NDA PMs, past and promotee.

We had just about recovered from our intensive study of the cardio-pulmonary system prompted by the present PM’s sudden bypass surgery, when a new-old political patient arrived on the media syllabus. In recent weeks we have been provided regular respiratory tract lessons via Mr Vajpayee’s precarious condition, but in 2001, his less-critical foster knees merited more space and time because he was then the sitting prime minister.

Next we will have to gird our loins to master the intricacies of electile dysfunction. Theoretical lessons will emphasise the importance of a fit constitution, but field malpractices will throw up contra-indications. Politics has already begun to look like an OPD, with wannabe candidates lining up at party offices, feverishly clutching their files and nursing hopes/grievances. Indeed, the media classroom has already begun to teach us about the internal workings of the body politic. Investigative procedures such as Soniagraphy are par for the course. But the EC-ji may no longer be a reliable tool. It’s suffering from arhythmic abnormalities of its own.