Textile industry suffers

Malawi's textile and garment industry is on the brink of collapse following South Africa's ban on imports from that country, officials in the capital, Lilongwe, told IRIN on Thursday. According to Jeffrey Mkandawire, an official of Malawi's Commerce and Industry ministry, trouble for Malawi's textile and garment industry started in 1999 when South Africa accused Malawi of violating the Southern African trade pact by allowing Far and Middle East merchants to bring textile products into the South African market via Malawi. "The South African government argues that Malawi's companies should add at least 25 percent value to products before exporting them to their markets," Mkandawire said. Malawi, however, denies that it merely serves as a transit route for these products. Mkandawire said Malawi and South Africa went ahead and imposed a ban on those textile and garment products that have not undergone significant value-adding processes in Malawi. He said South Africa also imposed high duty costs on companies that still export to South Africa outside the non-tariff trade pact. An official of the Textiles and Garment Industries Association of Malawi told IRIN that the industry was in tatters since the ban was imposed and high tariffs introduced. He said before the problems started in November 1999, 14 factories were exporting textiles and garments to South Africa, but that six of these had since closed down. "Of the eight companies still exporting textiles to South Africa, only two are operating at full capacity," said the official. The official added that Malawi's textile industry used to employ at least 11,000 workers and that at the peak of the Malawi-South Africa textiles non-tariff pact, Malawi exported at least US $70 million worth of textiles annually.