The Surat Apparel Park Association, an apex trade body of the clothing exporters in the Park has written to the State as well as Central Government to de-notify the Surat Apparel Park, which is a SEZ and convert it into a regular apparel park.
This condition has come about due to the global slowdown which has resulted in sluggish exports from the apparel exporting units in the SEZ, turning upside down all the calculations made at the time of setting up of these units.
About 11 garment exporters have said that they would be forced to close down their units, due to a paucity of orders and have hardly done much transactions in the last few months, in the, first of its kind SEZ in South Gujarat.
The Surat Apparel Park was converted in to a SEZ in 2006 and of the 128 plots, only 66 have been sold so far, of which only 11 units are operating, providing employment to around 3,000 people and eight other units are under construction.
The 11 units have so far invested around Rs 195 Crore and overall exports from the Park have touched only Rs 60 Crore in the last three years, which is the main reason for the exporters requesting for a de-notification.
Clothing exports from India reached only US $2.41 billion in the first quarter of 2009-10 against $2.85 billion clocked in the same period of the previous fiscal year and in the month of June alone, they fell by 10.15 percent.
Source : fibre2fashion.com