Kathmandu, April 4:

Garment export to the USA has gone down by 13 per cent in March in comparison to increment of 47 per cent in February. Nep-al has exported garment worth $6539944.72 in February. According to Garment Association of Ne-pal, US is a major market for Nepali garment expo-rts. The export of garments to US has declined by eig-ht per cent in January compared to a fall by 46 per cent last January.

As per the statistics, garment exports declined by 55 per cent in February last year compared to a rise by 47 per cent in February. In February 2004, garment export to US has gone down by 41 per cent compared to 31 decline in January the same year, according to GAN. However, in 2003, the garment export to the USA has gone up by 48 per cent.

As a whole, 2003 has seen a rise in export by only 16 per cent compared to 111 per cent rise in April during the same year. But in 2005, the export of readymade garments to US has decreased by 41 per cent compared to 30 per cent downfall in 2004.

Despite the increase in exports due to increased interest of American importers, it is not more helpful to the Nepali exporters. “It is difficult for Nepali exporters to compete with global products,” said exporters. The Nepali exporters are demanding for duty free access to US market, but they are not being availed by such facility yet and phase out provision has hit the sector hard.

Similarly, garment export to Canada has also declined by over 64 per cent in March, that is worth $86668.27 compared to over 38 per cent downfall in February. However, garment export to Canada in June 2004 had increased by 248 per cent compared to a decline by 31.46 per cent in January 2004.