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and paved the way for industrialization. Some countries attracted foreign investors by opening up free trade zones. Many critics called it “textile led” growth.

3.At the time Sri Lanka began to pursue liberal economic policies in 1977, the textile and clothing industry played only a minor role in the country’s economy. In the light of the broad based economic liberalisation and the benign impact of the MFA, the industry since then has recorded a remarkable growth and assumed a key role in the economy. While garments accounted for the largest share of all commodity exports (27 per cent) in 1986, it became the largest foreign exchange earner (US$ 0.4 billion) by 1992, by 1995; garments export exceeded US$ 1.5 billion, nearly half of all commodity exports.

4.Of the 21 percent contribution made by the manufacturing industries to the country’s economy in 1996, 40 per cent was from the textile and clothing sector. The growth of the garment industry was particularly rapid in 1992 and 1993 due to the attempts taken by the government under the 200 GFP decentralise the industry away from the Western Province. Although the textile and clothing sector registered a slow growth of 5.1 per cent against 14.8 per cent in 1995, it still accounted for 33.7 per cent of the growth witnessed in the private sector industrial output. (The slow growth in 1996 was primarily because of the continued power cuts due to prolong drought). According to the Ministry of industrial Development, there has been a total of 859 garment factories at the end of 2001 while the number of textile manufacturing firms stood over 140, with less than 10 companies accounting for most of the output. The largest garment factories (in terms of employment) were located within the free-trade-zones (FTZs) run by the Board of Investment of Sri Lanka (BOISL) the authority responsible for the promotion of foreign direct investment.

Source: JICA/UNIDO Apparel Industry draft report May 2000, p3

5.Today the textile and clothing sector has replaced the tea industry the traditional front line export industry as the leading foreign exchange earner. Specially, the growth of garment export has been highly impressive. For instance during the period 1980 to 1990 the value of apparel export increased from US $ 100 million to US $ 620 million. In terms of quantity, the exports grew from 52 million pieces to 212 million pieces during the same decade. Exports of garments, which were only 10 percent Sri Lanka’s total export in 1980, reached nearly half in 1993, registering in average annual increase of 30 percent. In 1996 the textile and clothing sector accounted for 46 percent of the country’s total export earning. Its share among the industrial exports reached as high as 63 percent. The highest growth, (21 percent) was in the woven fabric categories.

6.The textile and clothing sector has also been an outstanding source in generating employment opportunities. Being a highly labour intensive industry, this sector has been successful in absorbing a fairly large number of workers. By end of 2001, garment sector provided direct employment to approximately 391682 personal. The garment sector as whole represented about 14 percent of the 5.5 million of the country’s total employed work force. Approximately 40 percent of which was engaged in the textile and clothing sector. Of the total work force employed in the textile and clothing industr