Since long, textile and apparel manufacturers in various countries of Africa have been complaining of unprecedented increase in imports, legally and illegally of Chinese-make goods in to their respective countries.
The stakeholders from the sector allege that Chinese manufacturers have now started duplicating local designs in a bid to capture a bigger share of the domestic markets in the countries which make up the African continent.
For instance in Ghana, two major textiles companies; Ghana Textile Print and Printex, shut down their yarn and fabric production facilities, unable to compete with the influx of textile and clothing from across China.
In Nigeria alone, jobs in the textile sector fell from 250,000 in 1996 to 25,000 in 2008, mainly due to the unrestricted imports of mainly smuggled textiles from China. Share of consumption of Chinese make textiles and clothing has touched 80 percent in South Africa.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - India