Africa-Press – Eswatini. Business Eswatini is pursuing South Africa’s Value Chain Master Plan to 2030, which threatens the jobs of about 22 000 workers in the local textile industry.
According to an annual report presented to stakeholders at the recent Annual General Meeting for Business Eswatini, the organisation explained that South Africa, through its Retail – Clothing, Textile, Footwear and Leather (R-CTFL) Value Chain Master Plan to 2030, which is part of its post-COVID-19 economic recovery plan strategy, has a policy which shall negatively impact the textile industry in Eswatini and neighbouring countries like Lesotho, Botswana and Namibia.
“In this policy, South African companies will no longer pay the 22 per cent levy to import material (fabric) from overseas countries like China, Cambodia, and other Far East countries. This is on condition that they do not export it to other countries, including Eswatini.
This means that a majority of the cut, make, trim (CMT) factories in the country, who depend on South African markets, will have no jobs (orders) from South Africa and the freight on board (FOB) factories will have to pay rebate duties when importing the fabric from South Africa,” the report states.
Escalated
According to Business Eswatini the matter was escalated to the minister of commerce, industry and trade, who engaged his counterpart in South Africa and have begun discussions around reviewing the master plan.
“Business Eswatini continues to pursue the matter from both the ministry and the Textile Association,” part of the report reads. It is understood that in South Africa stakeholders in the sector committed to growing the market for CTFL producers.
The agreed target is to grow total CTFL retail sales to R250 billion in 2030, with CTFL share increased to 65 per cent in order to support R69 billion South African CTFL procurement that deliver a total of R-CTFL employment of 333 000 workers, including 165 000 CTFL formal sector manufacturing jobs. Worth noting is that according to a National Skills Audit Report released by the Minister of Labour and Social Security Phila Buthelezi, the leading employer in Eswatini is the manufacturing industry, which employs over 3 813 workers.
A detailed analysis of different manufacturing companies using the data on their principal activities showed that these companies were mostly in the textile sector.
“This confirms not only that the economy is concentrated in a few sectors such as manufacturing, but also that Eswatini’s industrial sector is indeed dominated by, among others, the manufacturing of textiles,” the report reads. It states that manufacturing is central to economic diversification and competitiveness and helps in the attainment of structural transformation in many countries.
The sector is also identified in the COMESA Industrialisation Strategy (2017-2026) as one of the nine priority areas earmarked to drive development through the manufacturing of textiles and garments (COMESA, 2017).
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