“I am not surprised by this situation that exports are in, due to the fact that there are no foreign sales. All my clients abroad have cut prices by an average 25 percent, which means a drop in the number of orders for Romania,” Sorina Placinta, owner of Sorste Focsani, a top ten local textile producer, told Business Standard.
Thus, industrial production fell 25.4 percent in the first three months, due to lower consumer purchasing power, higher costs for raw material imports, and as a result of precarious lending conditions, amounting to RON 1.93 billion (some €0.46 bln).
“On the one hand, clothing production was based on imports, because we have no raw materials, costs for importing soared, and the possibility of financing from bank loans is not an advantageous option for the textile companies. On the other hand, the market shrank, and all this led to a drop in clothing production, which reflected directly on the total value of exports,” said Maria Grapini, President of the Light Industry Owners Association (FEPAIUS).
The number of employees working in the textile sector dropped 20 percent in the first quarter of this year, to 271,100 people from 334,700 people in Q1 2008.
As a result, revenues generated by exports in the textile industry fell one tenth in January 2009, compared to January 2008, to €346.6 million, according to data provided by the Ministry of Economy, quoted by FEPAIUS.
