Foreign buyers pull out of Colombo
View(s):The second wave of the coronavirus has caused a severe impact with the apparel industry orders being held up, resulting in buyers pulling out of Colombo.
“Buyers have pulled out and bringing them back in is a difficult thing,” Free Trade Zone Garment Manufacturers Association Secretary General Dhammika Fernando told the Business Times.
Sri Lanka, where buyers once turned to when other apparel manufacturing destinations were closed for business in March, is now facing the same consequences since the Minuwangoda COVID -19 outbreak.
Furthermore factories are unable to bring down workers due to lockdowns imposed in the Gampaha district and restricted movements of any staff from the five areas of Minuwangoda, Gampaha, Veyangoda, Divulapitiya and Mirigama.
“We are currently running with a sharp drop in employee strength,” Mr. Fernando explained noting that workers cannot be brought down from those five areas due to health regulations.
With a majority of the workers located in these five areas, this has caused a lot of hardships at the factories in meeting orders.
Staff can be transported only via buses allocated from the respective factories in the areas under curfew and those travelling on bikes or three wheelers are also not allowed to use this mode of transport since people are said to be abusing this facility.
About less than 350 tested COVID-19 positive at the Katunayake zone and the total workforce of about 35,000 has reduced to about 28,000 with about 200 tests carried out daily.
There are 500 tests carried out daily in the Gampaha district BOI zone, he said adding that however Biyagama, Malwatte and Wathupitiwala zones have not been affected as bad as Katunayake.
Further, Mr. Fernando noted that future deployment of manpower workers would be subject to strict rules that they do not change their places of work since they had found that it was these workers that had been also a reason for the spread of the disease between factories.
Manpower workers, supplied by employment agencies, comprise 10-12 per cent of the total workforce at the BOI zones while some factories do not engage manpower workers at all.
“We have to urge the government that now it is 20 days since the lockdown and soon they must allow us to bring down people from these areas,” Mr. Fernando said.
“Our factories cannot produce the end of season orders for the holiday season,” he said adding that a few companies have complained they have lost millions of dollars in orders as they are unable to meet the deadlines.
Buyers from Europe and the US are finding alternate manufacturing destinations to produce their orders in time for the upcoming holiday season, Mr. Fernando noted. “Losing orders means it is being produced elsewhere,” he said.
(SD)