Chennai, Apr 27 (IANS): The garment exporting units in Tiruppur of Tamil Nadu are seeing increased demand for innerwear, children wear, long garments from overseas markets while the orders for fashion garments have gone down, said an industry official.

He also said the US and European markets have opened up and the Tiruppur export units are functioning well and the domestic market has also improved.

"With people worldwide spending more time at their homes due to Covid-19, the orders for innerwear and children's wear have increased. Similarly demand for long garments have increased while the orders for masks and personal protection equipment (PPE) have come down. On the other hand, orders for fashion garments have come down for our units," S.Sakthivel, Executive Secretary, Tiruppur Exporters Association (TEA) told IANS.

Last fiscal the hosiery units in Tiruppur closed with a total business of about Rs 45,000 crore of which exports will be Rs 25,150 crore down from Rs 27,250 crore registered during 2019-20, Sakthivel said.

He said the yarn and prices of other inputs have gone up, but the units are not able to pass it on to their buyers.

Even though export units are exempted from the Sunday lockdown in Tamil Nadu, the garment units in Tiruppur are not allowed to operate as it will be business as usual in the town defeating lockdown purpose-preventing spread of coronavirus, Sakthivel said.

On the issue of migrant workers going back home, Sakthivel said only a small number of such workers have gone back.