A garment industry trade official recently stated that, the industry is hoping to sign up Emmanuel "Pacman" D. Pacquiao, a famous boxer and also a Congress representative to gather support for passing of a US bill seeking lesser duty imposition on exports of garments produced in Philippines.
This enlistment would come up as a part of an all together new lobbying strategy, which would even resort to social media marketing through internet in order to encourage the Filipino Americans to bring the legislators together on a consensus to pass the “Save Our Industries Act of 2009”.
The main object of the bill pending for approval before the US Senate and House of Representatives is to earn a duty-free access in US for the Philippine-made garments produced by using American textiles and yarns and to secure lesser duties for exports of other apparel.
As stated by the Confederation of Garment Exporters of the Philippines, if the bill is cleared, it is expected to boost the country's garment export turnover by $1.1 billion in the very first year of its execution. It is also likely to improve the performance of the industry which continued to remain at about two to two and a half billion dollars per annum, after the expiry of US export quota in 2005.
Fibre2fashion News Desk-India