The industrial Development Corporation (IDC) has in principle approved four applications from the textile and apparel sector for providing credit loans amounting to R70 million in a bid to rescue them from the fallout of the economic crisis.
This amount is part of a stimulus package approved for the ailing textile and garment sector by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. But, industry experts aver that, the package may have come a tad too late since most of the enterprises have shut down.
Frame textiles, which used to employ around 1,400 employees, closed down operations as its application for accessing the stimulus package was turned down by the ministry, since running the company was considered economically unviable.
IDC was extending the loan to the textile and garment sector at attractive interest rates in a bid to modernize the old and obsolete textile machinery and in the process improve the productivity and quality of the end products manufactured in the sector.