South African clothes makers not feeling the love for Chinese imports
on September 8th, 2006 at 2:05 amCape Town – (www.busrep.co.za) Local clothing manufacturers, the very constituency the government’s clothing quotas are supposed to help, have now voiced their opposition to the planned restriction on imported Chinese-made clothing.
The clothing manufacturer associations and clothing retailers were noticeable in their absence at a joint press conference yesterday, organised by the department of trade and industry, following a meeting at which affected parties were invited to express their views.
At the conference, the department’s acting director-general, Iqbal Sharma, was flanked by Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union general secretary Ebrahim Patel and Textile Federation president Igsaan Salie…
Sharma explained his “greed” comment by saying retailers had flooded the market with cheap imports, which was not a sustainable growth model for domestic manufacturers. He said total profits of the country’s top five retailers had grown from just less than R2 billion in 2002 to almost R7 billion this financial year. (more…)
Sharma is right. This does nothing for sustainable growth for country that desparately needs to be self-sufficient. Please don’t get me started on the Chinese imports flooding our markets here in America.
