Alan Peat THE TEXTILE export industry has taken a massive wallop from the strengthened rand, according to Brian Brink, executive director of the Textile Federation. “A year ago things were going wonderfully well,” he told FTW, “but with the sudden strengthening of the rand there has been a dramatic downturn.” Everyone can deal with a currency movement which is slow and steady, Brink added, but a sudden strengthening is an uncontrollable incident. And it’s especially damaging to the textile industry, he added, where pricing is not just competitive, but cut-throat, with “dumping” type pricing prevalent around the global textile and apparel industry sectors. And the currency effect is hitting both the import and export sides of the textile and clothing business. “This is the most serious I’ve ever seen it in this industry,” said Brink. “Exports have been chopped because of the rising rand, while at the same time imports of cheaper textile products have seen the SA industry losing on the domestic market as well.” Looking at the table for apparel exports, Brink told FTW that - in the first eight months of this year - exports were down about 20% in terms of volume. “Meanwhile, imports of clothing were up by 17% in rand terms,” he said, “and textile imports up by 26% in volume.” This situation has rather taken the shine off the SA textile industry’s export activities, Brink added, which had, for example, gleefully delighted last year in taking profitable advantage of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) preference, where approved African countries (including SA) gained duty-free access for imports into the massive US market.
