Financial figures verify serious crisis in Greece’s struggling textiles sector
Textile companies suffered a significant fall in profits and a 0.7 decline in total turnover in 2004 the first sample of financial reports published shows, according to a report by Hellastat. The first 243 companies to publish their 2004 figures, of a total of about 730, have shown a 76.4 percent drop in profits, largely due to the great losses of the two listed companies, Fanco and Naoussa Spinning Mills, whose total reached 52.7 million euros. Excluding those two companies, there actually is an 8 percent rise in pretax profits, thanks to 76 firms that have improved their results. As many as 85 companies showed a decline with 56 being lossmaking, although 31 of them were profitable in 2003. The apparel sub-sector posted a 3.9 percent rise in 2004, down from a yearly average of 5 percent in the last four years. Profits improved by 15.7 percent from an annual average of 12.4 percent in 2001-2004. On the contrary, other textile products are going through a serious crisis, as the average annual rise in turnover was just 1.4 percent in 2001-2004, while pretax profits are down by 30 percent on a yearly basis. Short-term bank borrowing relative to sales rose to 36.6 percent in 2004 from 34.3 percent in 2003 in other textile products, while in apparel it stayed at 25-26 percent. However several smaller enterprises exceed this level by far.
