Handicraft exports growth sluggish during Apr-Sep, dip minus 3 pc

Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH), an apex organization of trade and industry for promotion of handicrafts, Wednesday informed that the shipment of handicraft items has dropped by around minus three percent during April-September in 2017-18.

"The exports of handicrafts during April-September 2017-18 have shown a decrease of USD 55.68 million (from USD 2000.64 million in 2016-17 to USD 1944.96 million in 2017-18) i. e. the exports decreased by 2.78 percent over the similar period in 2016-17," the Chairman, EPCH, O.P. Prahladka told SME Times in Greater Noida at a press conference on 44th  IHGF-Delhi to be open from October 12, 2017. 

He said, "Mainly the artmetalwares, imitation jewellery, misc handicrafts have showed negative growth of 9.07 percent, 6.51 percent and 11.10 percent respectively."

Prahladka belies that Goods and Services Tax (GST) is one of the major reason of drop in figure. He mention that due to the GST implication at present exporters are not in a position to figure out its exact input cost of their items. He also said the volatility in Indian Rupee is also affected the data during said time period in 2017-18.

Executive Director of EPCH, Rakesh Kumar, while speaking to SME Times, said, "In April-June tere was increase in figure but from July-September there was a down fall of 29 percent in exports of handicraft items." The Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented from July 1 this year.

However, Kumar made clear that there was major drop in exports of artmetalwares handicrafts from Muradabad. He said, "The drop in export is mainly due to increase in price of copper and zinc, that we import for our metalware handicraft items from other countries." 

"And the price of these metals are governed by London Metal Exchange (LME). In July 2017 there was 20 percent increase in metal prices in LME," he added.