Cheap imports threaten apparel industry

27 Jul '10

2 min read

Imports of cheap clothing, counterfeit clothing and other fraudulent activities have become major issues of concern for South African fashion and clothing industry experts.

Illegal clothing import allows people to sell their products at cheaper rates, as compared to the rates of products manufactured in domestic clothing industry. So competing with such cheap products is a worrisome issue for the local retailers.

In the country, the market for fake brands of designer clothing is widening and garment imports from Asian countries like China, Bangladesh and Vietnam has been escalating.

Since November 2009, SARS and customs officials have confiscated over R 219,080,000 worth of counterfeit World Cup items with more than 366,000 jerseys, while, in the year 2008-09 customs officials made 731 seizures of counterfeit goods worth R 379,622,919.

If China continues to dominate global clothing and textile trade, around 30 million people might witness job loss around the globe, revealed a website of the US-based National Council of Textile Organization.

Bulk of cheap Asian imports as well as trade and policy imbalances between China and South Africa has already resulted in almost 10,000 layoffs in the clothing and textile industry each year, based on the 2009 statistics presented by Cape Clothing Association.

A two-year quota system was introduced by the government in the year 2007, with an objective to shrink Asian clothing imports to South Africa. But, the system did not offer sufficient time to the industry for restructuring and to improve production capacity, even though it could control the import of Chinese goods to other countries.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk - India