China’s dominance shrinks SA’s clothing exports

CLIVE EMDON THE VALUE of South African clothing exports to the US dropped 38.7% in 2006 - R196m on 16 million garments compared to the previous year’s equivalent of R320m on 131 million garments, says Jack Kipling, chairman of the Export Council for the Clothing Industry. “The reason for the decline in exports to all destinations was the demise of the Multi-Fibre Agreement in Jan 2005 which opened the doors for China to dominate global trade in apparel,” said Kipling. “The strength of the rand further impacted on SA’s global competitiveness.” And the position is unlikely to change in the near future, although it appears to be stabilising at the reduced level of export activity, in Kipling’s view. South African exports of clothing internationally totalled R608m on 22 million garments for the period Jan-Sept 2006, down 23.3% from 2005’s R793m on 58 million garments. Clothing imports from the US amounted to R23.7m Jan-Sept 2006, compared with R24.9m for the full 12 months of 2005. South African exports of textiles to the US from Jan-Sept were valued at R192.7m while the 2005 total was R222.3m. Textile imports from the US amounted to R175.5m (Jan-Sept).