"Nepal’s readymade garment sector faces Rs 1.25 billion hit as foreign buyers cancel orders", 26 July 2020

Foreign buyers have so far cancelled or held up orders worth Rs1.25 billion of readymade garments from Nepal in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Garment Association of Nepal said.

The cancelled or held up orders are equivalent to around 28 percent of Nepal’s total garment exports in the first 11 months of the last fiscal year 2019-20 which ended in mid-July, according to the Trade and Export Promotion Centre, an export promotion and facilitating agency under the Commerce Ministry.

The readymade garment industry is one of the sectors worst affected by the pandemic as demand from the international market plunged as the global economy faces the worst ever recession, only comparable to the Great Depression of the 1930s...

...Europe is one of the key markets for Nepal’s readymade garments and has been ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic, closing markets for several weeks. Due to this, Pandey received messages from a French buyer to keep the shipment on hold.

...Chandi Prasad Aryal, president of Nepal Garment Association, said it was not only difficult to import raw materials for producing garments, but exporting them was also equally difficult as the pandemic caused border restrictions, virtually halting transport movement in many countries, including Nepal.

According to exporters, the entire export sector suffered from a plunge in demand and supply chain disruption globally due to the pandemic...