MINSK, 17 December (BelTA) – This year sales of light industry products were influenced by the change in consumer preferences, Tatyana Lugina, the head of the Belarusian state light industry concern Bellegprom, said in an interview with the Respublika newspaper, BelTA has learned.
What was previously considered important and enjoyable, today has lost importance, Tatyana Lugina noted. “Health, frugality take priority today. There are no more impulsive purchases. People prefer cheaper products," she said. “Back in mid-November, we estimated that the export in 2020 would make up 83% of the export in 2019. At the beginning of December it came at 82.1%. The second wave of the pandemic is taking its toll. The dynamics of morbidity in each country is growing, lockdowns are imposed. Products of the light industry are losing the demand.”
Bellegprom has profitability at 6%. "Large enterprises play a big role in overall efficiency: they are reducing output in December due to low turnover. Naturally, the figures of large companies affect the overall performance of the Bellegprom concern," Tatyana Lugina added.
In terms of sales, the footwear industry has suffered the most. "Orsha Linen mill lost up to 20% of sales on its major markets - Europe, America. The demand on the Turkish market, where we shipped 12% of linen fabrics, has shrunk. Turkish manufacturers use Belarusian fabrics to sew clothes for Europe. We had preliminary agreements for supplies of the Orsha flax mill products, but Turkish companies canceled the orders at the end of November,” the Bellegprom chairwoman said.
According to her, despite all the difficulties, the Belarusian clothing companies have been showing quite stable performance this year. “Of course, the production of PPE and give-and-take orders helped us to utilize the production capacities and to make money. We had a difficult time in the spring, when we had to quickly re-purpose and produce PPE, which we had never done before. We had to fulfill the state's social order and manufacture the planned assortment alongside the production program,” Tatyana Lugina said.
Bellegprom has a necessary stock of face masks, protective coveralls, caps, and shoe covers. Today Bellegprom enterprises produce PPE for the pharmacy network and organizations. “We produce about 50,000 masks a day, because there has been an increase in demand for them recently. The manufacturers now have time to be more creative and have already started producing masks with bold prints and of different colors,” the Bellegprom head said.
