Meltdown hits sports goods units too

Sarbjit Dhaliwal,
Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 15
Known the world over , especially in Europe, the UK and Australia for export of footballs, hockey sticks, cricket bats and other sports material, sports industry here is hit by global meltdown. Fluctuations in the exchange rate of currencies, especially, of Australia and the UK, have given hard blow to the sports units .“Owing to fluctuations in Australian dollar and UK’s pound, we have suffered loss of 20 per cent to 30 per cent across the board”, said RS Rana, regional director, Sports Goods Export Council, a body sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Certain items to be exported to meet commitments made to importers, the industry is not able to recover even cost, asserts Rana. “While American dollar firmed against Indian rupee in a few months, Australian dollar and the UK’s pound were in reverse gear”, adds Rana, who manufactures especially cricket bats etc. for export.

Even the domestic market has been hit by recession. Demand for sports goods has gone down by 20 per cent to 30 per cent winning of Olympic medals by Abhinav Bindra, Vijender Kumar, Jitender Kumar and others notwithstanding. “After the Olympics, there was boom in demand for boxing gloves and other stuff in the country, but not so now”, said Rana.

Importers in Europe, the UK and other countries have asked sports manufacturers to delay the supply of material by three to six months. “They have suspended import orders and obviously it is not a happy situation for all of us”, says Vikas Gupta, who exports footballs. China is posing big challenge to Indian sports goods manufacturers.

Ramesh Kohli, exporting hockey sticks says more demand for wooden sticks in the international market has fallen , due to high demand for composite sticks.

Sports manufacturers met Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath urging him to lift ban on the supply of raw material; such as willow from Jammu and Kashmir and cane from Andamans to other states. The duty drawback on sports goods needs to be increased at least by three per cent, 10-year tax holiday for investment in this sector and 10 per cent subsidy on investment and Income Tax deduction on 50 per cent of export profits.