The previous literature highlighted the importance of export assistance to uplift export activities of small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). However, those studies could not test the feasibility of introduced export assistance for the targeted population. This study focuses on export assistance provided by the government institutions to the handloom exporters and its relationship with their perceived quantitative export performance. A detailed literature review of the existing export assistance programmes led to the categorization in four aspects, that is, financial support, informational support, facilitating support, and education/training support. A model is proposed based on identified variables depicting the relationship between export assistance and handloom exporters’ perceived quantitative export performance. In order to develop the model, first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was initially applied for validity measures. Subsequently, second-order CFA was applied due to the presence of multicollinearity among the variables due to the undistinguishable response of the chosen sample units towards export assistance. Thus, the study investigated the relationship of each of the four identified export assistance elements with the quantitative performance of Handloom exporters.
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