Venezuela import ban turns clothing sector topsy-turvy

06 Apr '10

2 min read

The South American country of Columbia, which shares borders with Venezuela, Brazil, Panama, Ecuador and Peru, at one time had a thriving textile and garment industry, with the likes of iconic brands like Polo, Ralph Lauren and Levi's, outsourcing their requirements from here.

But in recent years, more so in the last year, the sector has been riddled with insurmountable challenges, which has led to a reduction of workforce in the sector by around 50,000 in the last four years, with a number of textile and garment, which just closed down, unable to face the onslaught.

After automobiles, textiles and apparel was Colombia's worst performing manufacturing sector last year. While, manufacturing as a whole fell 7.1 per cent between January and September last year, spinning and weaving fell 8.0 percent, knitted goods 15.1 percent and apparel 23.5 percent.

Between January and November, exports of textiles and clothing dropped an awesome 41.7 percent. The real problems began with the dismantling of the quota system in 2005. To add to that, were the import restrictions placed by its biggest importing country, Venezuela in 2009.

This move by Venezuela resulted in a massive 77 percent dip in exports from a year ago, till January 2010. This has resulted in a mad scramble to look for alternative markets in Latin and South America as; the textile and clothing firms had totally ignored domestic markets, in favour of exports to Venezuela.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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