New labelling laws hit the small guys

… but rest of industry should welcome them ALAN PEAT WHILE A number of complaints have been made, the legally enforced country-of-origin labelling of textiles, clothing and footwear imports should be welcomed by the industry, according to Brian Brink, executive director of the Textile Federation. He includes the fact that these imports must also have the importer’s individual code numbers on the labels. The moans are mainly coming from the smaller importers in the industry, he said – like those who supply the street hawker market, and the importers of small quantities of designer-label clothes and hand-made Italian shoes (FTW July 1, 2005) - and none of the complaints are insurmountable, he told FTW. Brink agrees that nobody would like to see exclusive clothing defaced by ugly labels and he concedes that many import quantities are too small to expect the supply manufacturers to label such small individual orders themselves. But there is nothing to stop the local buyers from attaching their own labels and placing them so that they are unobtrusive, he added. Those who complain about the impossibility of printing labels on expensive shoe imports – stressing that this can only be done as part of the manufacturing process – can also find a way round the legislation. It is likely, according to Brink, that they would get away with applying the labels to the box, and he thinks it unlikely that the authorities would strictly apply the laws to these small quantities of imports. “And these smaller guys are only a tiny proportion – about 5%-7% - of the overall industry,” he said. “The bigger guys are co-operating, and you’ll see that all the stocks in the chain stores, for example, already have the appropriate labelling.” Brink feels that something should possibly be done for these smaller operators. “But we shouldn’t hold up the legislation for their sake,” he said