Quota measures offer scant protection
13/09/2007
The South African government’s insistence on keeping quotas on imports of Chinese textiles has failed to protect the local textile industry, a study from the Trade Law Centre for Southern Africa (Tralac) has claimed.
The government imposed the quotas at the start of this year, claiming that it was taking measures to protect thousands of jobs in South African textile and apparel factories.
However, the Tralac study insists that the quotas have not prevented cheap imports from coming into the country; these have simply come from sources other than China.
Imports from China in the first six months of this year went down by 40% compared to the same period last year. But the total value of textiles and clothing imports into South Africa decreased by only 16% over the same period.
Imports from Mauritius, Malaysia and, most importantly, Pakistan grew substantially, with cloth and clothing from those countries taking the place of most of the Chinese imports in the South African market.
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