Africa-Press – Eswatini. In as much as local textile exports to the European Union (EU) are almost inexistent, but the potential for growth is more than €17 million (approximately E339 million) larger than to any other market.
This is according to European Union (EU) Ambassador to Eswatini Dessislava Choumelova who was speaking during the Vukani BoMake Project (VBP) 13th Cottage Factory handover ceremony yesterday. Choumelova said the Eswatini textile industry was a growing and dynamic sector, specialised in producing high-quality garments with many years of experience. She noted that sector was the largest employer of women with low education; however, the destination of its products was almost exclusively South Africa.
She said exports to the EU are almost inexistent, but the potential for growth is more than €17 million (Approx. E339 million) larger than to any other market. The ambassador said many products in the apparel and textiles sector had tariff-free access to the EU, under the EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement.She said then the question was what stood in the way of this enormous potential for growth in exports of apparel and textiles to the EU. She said the answer to that was that there were trade facilitation issues, such as lack of information about rules and regulations, or difficulties in complying with them.
Choumelova mentioned that it was also important to understand how to increase value-added activities in the same value chain, e.g., Eswatini labels and brands and innovative products.The ambassador added that at the same time, the EU was pushing companies to mitigate their negative social and environmental impact, so that goods reaching EU markets were produced while respecting workers’ rights and the environment.
She highlighted that Eswatini was ranked among the 10 worst countries for workers rights in 2023 according to the Global Rights Index, recently released by the International Trade Union Confederation’s (ITUC). She said this was important to note in the context of the EU adopting a Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDD) which aims to strengthen the private sector’s contribution to the implementation of the European Green Deal, and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The ambassador said it forms part of a larger set of policy initiatives on global value chain sustainability, which were adopted under the umbrella of the European Green Deal. She said due diligence meant that companies must take appropriate measures to prevent, end or mitigate impacts on the rights and prohibitions included in international human rights agreements. “This could be, for example, ensuring workers’ access to adequate food, clothing, and water and sanitation in the workplace,” she said.
She stated that companies were also required to take measures to prevent, end or mitigate negative environmental impacts that run contrary to a number of multilateral environmental conventions. She said even if the companies in the scope of the directive were large and mid-sized EU companies and large non-EU companies operating in the EU, it would affect indirectly all the companies in the value chain.
Choumelova said for this reason, the EU was developing accompanying measures at global, regional and local levels to support businesses, business support organisations, governments and civil society throughout global value chains (both in EU and third countries). She said the CSDD could be a potential sustainable trade opportunity for producing countries, provided the measures were implemented inclusively. Choumelova said when developing new accompanying support actions, a continuous dialogue and engagement with affected stakeholders would happen across the measures at different levels to capture successes and failures and application from theory to practice, from global to local and vice versa.
She said in the framework, their programme in Eswatini implemented by ITC, the EU has aligned existing programme activities to support uptake of the CSDD. She said the proposed directive provides ideal conditions for the development of market opportunities for producers in Eswatini, many of whom were already supplying sustainable products to niche markets.
The ambassador further highlighted projects conducted by the EU in Eswatini since the beginning of 2022 and those projects included; a country mission by EU HQ to Eswatini on the CSSD; awareness and sensitisation of value chain actors on CSSD; readiness assessments of key value chain actors; apacity gap analysis and actions; workshop on environmental, social and governance (ESG) individual capacity development plans; training of trainers to replicate ESG assessments; and training on Framework for Accompanying Measures.
For More News And Analysis About Eswatini Follow Africa-Press
