The crash of rupee against dollar has surprising fallouts on the handloom textile industry in the state, mainly in the Malabar region, known as the home of handloom textiles in the country.
In what could be described as an unusual development, the fall of rupee has brought cheers as well as some tears from the handloom textiles exporting community here.
Most of the handloom textile exporters in the state had signed export agreements with the customers in the European countries and the US more than three months ago, and some of them more than a year ago, on the basis of the then-prevailing exchange rates of the dollar, which came to around `50 per dollar.
Now, the handloom textile exporters here are in a highly advantageous state as they would get more than `65 per dollar on the basis of the export orders received from the European and the US customers. On an average, every exporter of handloom textiles who has already obtained export orders till a few months ago would rightfully get a gain of about 15 percent. Unfortunately, even as the country is striving to cope with the rupee-crisis, the handloom textile exporters can’t laugh all the way to their banks.
They are under pressure from the foreign textile importers to pass on at least a portion of their increased income. In fact, the exporters here have already received letters from their foreign customers (importers of Europe and US) seeking some discounts on the payment to be made by them in dollars. Said C Jayachandran, president of the Kerala Handloom Textile Export Organisation,
“Of course, the fall of rupee against dollar has given an edge to the exporters already in possession of export orders. The exporters would get an increase of 15 percent on an average in terms of INR, but this phenomenon wouldn’t last longer.”
Jayachandran acknowledged that the handloom textile exporters here had already received letters from the foreign customers, seeking to pass on a portion of their excess profit to them.