More than 100 readymade garment manufacturing factories in and around the city have shut down due to paucity of manpower, escalation in yarn price and devaluation of the Indian currency with U.S. Dollar.
Garment producers have urged the textiles Ministry to intervene and take effective steps to stabilise yarn price, failing which the other 100 and odd such factories would also close down.
S Sivanandham, Secretary, Erode Textile and Garment Manufacturers Association said the value of Indian currency had declined some two years back in terms of U.S. Dollar due to which many garment exporters received less money.
Further price of the yarn and cotton suddenly shot up, forcing them to pay more for the commodity, resulting in an increase in production cost. Above all there was no skilled labour for garment production centres. Most of the qualified tailors had left the field, he said.
Association President V P Subramaniam said more than Rs 500 crore worth of readymade garments was produced and exported from Erode till 2007-2008. Exports have now come down to only Rs 100 crore. “Regular customers from USA, UK, Germany, France, Indonesia, Japan and Singapore are still providing orders, but we cannot not fulfil them for want of manpower as well as increase in raw material cost,” he said.
Both of them demanded that the Centre reduce the yarn price.
