COVID-19 is hitting every industry in the world. The Indian Apparel industry is being hit quite badly and this is bad news because it has a lot of labor involved in the production and supply chain. Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) is saying that roughly 65% of payments of apparel exporters ($2 billion which is about Rs 15,300 crore) is blocked with the foreign buyers. They have not paid for 2-3 months of shipments now.
The lockdown across the geographies have led to the following issues:
Foreign buyers are postponing orders,
While asking for hefty discounts
Goods in transit goods are not moving
Those already dispatched are also finding no takers on various foreign ports
Buyers have been either canceling or postponing the shipments and these cancellations and postponement of shipments have resulted in packing credits getting eroded. One has to remember that in today’s world, apparel products are tailor-made, and are made per specific designs and fashion of the day. Because of that they are really perishable and they cannot be used the next year. With almost zero salvage value, the stocks on hand become redundant.
We look at the recent events which are extremely significant. Implications of what is happening within and outside certain nations will haunt those countries and other players for many years.
One has been listening to a jibe at the Modi government that is as lazy as it is ignorant. Why does the government give 5 Kgs of grains to the poor 80 crore when the Indian economy is growing? Has India become more "socialist" under Modi? Here is a detailed analysis.
Swami Dhirendra Shastri called for a meat-free Navratri in Bengal. Parties answered by invoking Shakta tradition. A restricted rite, stripped of its disciplines, has become “culture”, and Bengal uses its first taste of political freedom in decades to flaunt the very decay that helped undo it.
Moscow saw a rare confluence. CIA Director Ratcliffe to warn Putin, Vatican Foreign Minister Gallagher to stop Ukraine war, Indian Foreign Minister with a special message from PM Modi. Meanwhile Russia has destroyed "90% Warehouses" in Ukraine.
