Christmas season brings cheers for handicraft exporters

The Christmas season has brought cheers for the Indian handicraft exporters as overseas shipments shot up by nearly fivefold to $26.32 million (around Rs 122 crore) in October, thanks to the economic revival in some of the western economies.

Exports stood at $5.27 million (around Rs 24 crore) in October last fiscal.

"For the Christmas and the New Year season, we start getting orders from September onwards and this time we are getting good orders compared to last year," Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts chairman Raj Malhotra said.

He added, "With economic revival in few western economies which led to an increase in consumer spending, we expect that the demand for our items would continue to grow."

Exports, which have been declining for 11 months in a row due to global recession, has managed to turn positive in September this year registering a growth of 177 per cent to $46.87 million compared to the same period last fiscal.

However, during April-October exports fell by 18.07 per cent to $864.12 million (around Rs 4,000 crore) against $1054.75 million (around Rs 4,900 crore) in the same period last year. Exporters feel that sops provided by the government, under the Foreign Trade Policy, have also helped them tide over the crisis, Malhotra said.

The US and EU together account for 70 per cent of India's total handicrafts exports.