Signs of success for SA clothing
WHILE still some way from being a leading sector in the South African economy, the local clothing and textile industry has the potential of becoming competitive again, Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies said yesterday.
Davies was on a visit to the Maitland-based Prestige Clothing factory, the manufacturing arm of Foschini and Damien Shipyards Group, as part of “Taking the DTi to the Factories” campaign.
Through the campaign, the department visits companies it has granted funding to assess the impact of the financial support, as well those which have shown potential for growth and a necessity to acquire funds from the DTi.
The DTi invested more than R10 million in Prestige through the Production Incentive Programme, and along with other investors, results have shown the growth of employee numbers from 6 to 600, the creation of a new factory in Caledon which employs more than 200, and improved efficiency of the production system, which sees the time taken for clothes to reach retail outlets reduced from 15 to 4 days. Since the programme was launched in 2010, the DTi has invested R2.6 billion.
“The challenges facing the clothing and textile industry were evident since the early 1990s. There was a huge competitive industry in the East, particularly China, and this industry was bleeding in South Africa for years and years,” Davies said.
“There were many voices that told us we might as well accept the fact that we will no longer be a country where we have clothing manufacturing, but we didn’t take that view.”
The fact that it takes four weeks to get imported goods in the country gave local manufacturers a window to become competitive again, Davies said.
Prestige chief executive Doug Murray said the growth of the local textile industry would not happen overnight.
“In the last three or four years, we have doubled the workforce here. The biggest advantage we have is that we can do quick response. Yes, you can get goods cheaper from China, so at the end of the day, if it’s just on price, we can’t compete. The gap we can fill is quick response,” he said.
“The only issue we now have is getting fabric. If we can get greater access to fabric, that would give us a huge advantage, and we can go at a faster rate.”
Dorothy Ellias of Woodstock was one of the first six workers at the factory shop and is a breadwinner in her home.
She said many of her fellow industry workers had been retrenched, but Prestige had grown in the last few years.
“In my 26 years, we have not even had short time,” she said.