A Study of Factors affecting the Exports of the Garment Industry in Sri Lanka

Since the export of textiles and apparel products is one of the biggest industries in Sri Lanka, and one which plays a key role in advancing the country's economy, this paper examines the main factors affecting the exports of the garment industry in Sri Lanka. After detailed analysis of the Sri Lankan garment industry, garment exports by direct competitors to the United States and the European Union, Inflation rate, Foreign Exchange rate, Generalised System of Preferences Plus scheme, wage of workers, number of unskilled migrants, tsunami disaster have been considered in this study to identify the main factors which influence the exports of the garment industry. After identifying the main factors, this paper aims to develop a factor model to forecast the garment exports of Sri Lanka. For this purpose this paper has used MINITAB and SPSS as main statistical software.