Agoa to aid revival of garment industry

10 Jan '07

1 min read

To restructure the garment industry from the verge of collapse, Government should take advantage of African Growth and Opportunity Act's (Agoa) extension to 2012.

Kenya has become one of the most expensive markets to do the business because of high cost of production, costly electricity and expensive labour.

Domestic industries failed to give tough competition to countries like China, India, Bangladesh, Taiwan and Vietnam due to lack of subsidies from Government.

Due to unfavourable conditions under which factories are operating, country is losing business to some other African countries like Ghana and Egypt.

The only way to compete with major players in the world is to target a special clientele with value added products.

In Kenya, it takes more than 100 days to import fabric while it takes only 20 to 30 days to import fabrics for countries like China and India.

Five years ago, industry use to employ more than 40,000 people but now it employs only 10,000 people.

Even appreciation of the shilling against the dollar has led to massive loss to garment manufacturers.

In recent months, factories that solely depend upon imported fabrics have suffered a loss of about ten percent.

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