Cape textile industry gets R220m boost

The mEC for Social Development in the Western Cape, Patricia de Lille, yesterday announced a R220 million injection into the region’s textile cluster over the next year.

The funds will go towards incentives and the Clothing and Textile Competitiveness Improvement Programme, which helps participating firms boost their level of competitiveness through training and benchmarking.

“The opportunity for sustainable growth is thus very positive and we want to encourage greater participation in this cluster programme,” she said.

Speaking at the Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster (CCTC) annual general meeting yesterday, De Lille said about 14 000 people in the province were directly dependent on formal jobs in clothing and textiles.

There was very little the province could do to affect the exchange rate and ease labour relations, she said, and roleplayers must strive to increase the quality of production.

“The foundation for sustainability must always be the competitiveness of your virtue,” she said, adding that the country’s clothing industry was possibly the most aggressive and competitive sector as far as global trade was concerned.

She said the province would continue to provide “a bulk of operational funding” to keep the cluster running.

Meanwhile, in Johannesburg, the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union was pleased with the 30 percent decrease in job losses in 2010, but urged vigilance to prevent further losses, a spokesman said yesterday.

The figure was based on a report tabled at the union’s national executive committee meeting last week.

“The report, based on actual job loss data collected and tracked on the union’s job loss database, shows a 30.1 percent decrease in job losses in 2010 compared to 2009,” the union said. In 2010, 10 143 job losses were recorded, compared with 14 516 in 2009.

The union said this was due to the impact of its Save Jobs campaign, which included tender alerts to local manufacturers, the promotion of local procurement and local fashion, union marketing of government support measures among shop stewards and factory owners, and the institution of increased duties on imported apparel following a union application in this regard to the International Trade Administration Commission.

There was also increased government support for the industry through incentive schemes and efforts to combat customs fraud, increased duties on certain clothing products and duty rebates on certain fabrics not available locally that were used in the manufacture of clothing and home textile products. Prices and labour costs were also rising in China, a large exporter.

Speaking from Cape Town, Justin Barnes, the director of the CCTC, said exploiting people was not a formula for a sustainable industry and therefore clothing manufacturers in the country could not expect to pay people “Chinese wages”.

He said low productivity levels stood in the way of the industry remaining competitive in terms of wages.

“We have to raise our productivity if we want to increase our competitiveness. Otherwise having a debate over wages is a very limiting understanding of competition

.” - Londiwe Buthelezi and Sapa