Europe and Africa: Growing markets for India's accessory industry

Europe and Africa have emerged as growing markets for India's fashion accessory industry. Based on a report by the Developing Country Sourcing featuring 15 accessory exporters from India, Eastern Europe is becoming a strong market for artificial jewelry and Africa, on the other hand, is getting more orders for textile accessories, belts and wallets from India. The growth for both markets has been attributed to the Indian population in the said countries.

India fashion accessory exports
India's fashion accessory industry has been steadily growing. In 2012 to 2014, its export value was 1.15 billion, rising to 2.44 billion by 2014 to 2015. Top markets include the US, UK, Germany, Netherlands and United Arab Emirates.

Competitive advantages
The artificial jewelry industry benefits greatly from iconic traditional designs of India, which quite are in demand abroad - both to foreigners and the growing Indian expat population. India has also earned a reputation for making high-quality products, particularly products made of leather and cloth.

Challenges
The artificial jewelry industry in India needs better organization and monitoring and could use more trade associations to collaborate with, while the textile industry, meanwhile, remains to be in tough competition with China.

The current beef ban imposed in India has also gravely affected the leather industry of India. With the shortage of leather, exporters have turned to importation of raw leather from other countries, which has increased their expenses and delayed their production and delivery to customers.

This article and its contents are provided by the Hinrich Foundation, a partner of Global Sources in promoting trade across Asia. The products and the suppliers featured in this article are export assistance program beneficiaries of the Hinrich Foundation.

See a comparison table of fashion accessory suppliers on GlobalSources.com