Master plan submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) in South Africa aims to revive the country’s ailing apparel and textile industry, which had shed between 140,000 to 160,000 jobs in recent years. Job losses, however, have stabilised over the last decade. The plan aims...
Eldoret-based textile firm Rivatex recently witnessed a major upgrade of its facility by installing advanced machinery after the Kenyan Government secured Sh5 billion in funding from the US Export-Import Bank. The fabric producer, which had been dormant for years, has seen a transformation in the last two...
A meeting of the East African Community’s (EAC) Leather Forum has taken place in Arusha, Tanzania, during which there were calls for the bloc to create a more easily accessible market for leather products. The forum was convened by the East African Business Council (EABC). It brought...
Though Nigerian garment markets are saturated with Asian items, domestic manufacturers—now trained, informed and having embraced value chain production systems—only need encouragement and funds as mass production needs capital and many are still at the workshop level struggling to meet delivery, said a top Nigerian Export Promotion...
Trading and services sectors provided robust impetus to the overall credit offtake from the commercial banks in May this year, according to the Qatar Central Bank figures. Qatar’s commercial banks’ total loan portfolio expanded about 6% year-on-year to QR955.73bn in May 2019, said the figures released by...
ZimTrade, Zimbabwe’s export promotion body, has urged Zimbabwean tanners to upgrade their tanning processes in order to improve the quality of the finished leather they are supplying to the industry. In the organisation’s latest report, it said the sector — which once employed as many as 5,600...
As Kenya works to embrace genetically-modified (GM) crops, agriculture experts and lobby groups are urging the government to explore and adopt alternative food production systems and organic farming instead. The country is expected to take a decision in the next few months on whether to lift a...
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) recently set up a committee to revive the country’s cotton, textile and garment industry following the earlier restriction of official foreign exchange supply to textile importers to boost domestic production. Bank governor Godwin Emefiele said the target is to revive and...
Egypt's ministry of public business sector has allocated EGP 21 billion to increase the added value in the Egyptian cotton industry, as per the advice of international consultant Warner, which prepared a comprehensive study on developing the country's cotton sector. The government is making efforts to restore...
India, which was the second largest exporter of textile and apparel during 2014-17 after China, has fallen to the 5th rank in 2018 as Germany, Bangladesh and Vietnam have stepped in, according to chairman of Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) Sanjay K Jain. India's exports in...