South African Clothing and Textile Sector Fine: Minister Davies

Two articles –same story


Comment
“Social partners such as trade unions have committed to buying local” … WTF … shouldn’t they be leading by example and already doing this? How do you ask the private sector to support local when unions that should be protecting, saving and providing the space for employment growth have only now “committed” to support SA manufacturers? They should be demonstrating their support by providing examples of their local procurement.


Speaking at the Clothing and Textile Industries National Bargaining Council annual general meeting yesterday, Mr Davies said a competitiveness programme had been a significant factor stimulating growth in the sector.


At the end of September, close to 58000 people were employed in the textile industry, a slight improvement from the 56985 employed in December last year, Mr Davies said.

"The third quarter of this year was very problematic and troubling for South African manufacturers as well as the rest of the world. We saw the onset of the European debt crisis and we saw manufacturing industries around the world showing signs of strain," Mr Davies said.

"In SA we found that many of the industrial subsectors started to turn into negative territory as far as growth prospects are concerned, but what stood out is that this industry (clothing) was not one of those. This industry has continued to grow and stabilise."

Mr Davies said the competitiveness incentive measures would in future be applied to other manufacturing sectors.  He said 105 companies had taken up the clothing incentives to the value of R112m. Production incentives had been paid to 199 companies and the approvals amounted to R624m. "This has been a lesson to us, and we have indicated in the medium-term budget policy statement that there will be some additional programmes to support manufacturing in general," Mr Davies said.

He cautioned that challenges remained, one of which was the fight against illegal clothing imports, which negatively affected the sector.  "We have also stepped up our campaigns on illegal imports... I do not believe we have cracked the problem of illegal imports. The challenge of the illicit economy remains a very serious one in SA," Mr Davies said.  Amanda Cronje, chairwoman of the bargaining council, said yesterday there was evidence that the clothing industry might be recovering from the economic difficulties it faced.   Although imports from China continued to grow, the Chinese market share in SA had shrunk from 75% to 71%, she said.

Reference: Business Day, 30 November 2011

Textile sector weathers global financial storm

The clothing and textile industry has been little affected by the recent global financial crisis as the competitiveness programme had helped stimulate it, says Trade & Industry Minister Rob Davies.

Speaking at the Clothing & Textile Industries National Bargaining Council annual general meeting on Tuesday, Davies pointed to employment numbers in the sector having increased slightly over the past year.  He said that by September 30 there were 57,728 people employed in the textile industry, slightly higher than the 56,985 in October 2010.  "This is telling us a huge story," Davies said. "As you all know the third quarter was extremely problematic for the manufacturing industries with the onset of the European debt crisis.

"The strain that was experienced by many of the industrial subsectors was problematic and many slipped into negative territory. This industry (clothing and textiles) was not one of those," he said.  Davies said that as afar as he was concerned the Production Incentive Model that had been applied to the clothing and textile industry had helped this and that it would be applied to other manufacturing sectors.

Referring to the onset of the 2008/09 recession when the country lost up to one million jobs, Davies said the biggest casualty then was the manufacturing sector, that had contracted by 200,000 jobs.  "We cannot afford for this to happen again," Davies said.

He went on to say that the medium-term budget policy statement had announced additional competitiveness incentive measures that would be followed through in the national budget of 2012 and that the lessons from applying the incentives used in the clothing and textile sector could be generalised and applied to other manufacturing sectors.  Davies said that 105 companies had taken up the incentives in the competitive improvement program to the value of R112 million. The production incentives, that came into existence from April 2011 to October 2011, resulted in 199 companies benefitting and the approvals amounted to R624 million.  "This is to get manufacturers to invest and raise their competitiveness. No longer can they just sweat the assets, running the factories until no longer possible and then fire the workers," Davies said.

He also pointed that the Preferential Procurement Framework Regulations would come into effect from December 7.  These, Davies said, would allow government procurement officers to purchase locally manufactured workwear, bedding and linen.  Davies said social partners such the trade unions had also committed themselves to buying promotional material such as T-Shirts locally and that business had agreed to review its own procurement policies.

Reference: 29 November, TimesLive, BusinessLive