Egypt’s ministry of trade and industry and Switzerland recently announced scaling up collaboration to strengthen the competitiveness of Egyptian textiles and clothing producers. The aim is to boost exports, create jobs and raise incomes. The new initiative forms part of the three-year Global Textiles and Clothing (GTEX) programme. The partnership for the initiative, ‘Egypt: Improving the International Competitiveness of the Textile and Clothing Sector’, was formalised by Egypt’s minister for trade and industry Amr Nassar and ambassador of Switzerland to Egypt Paul Garnier in Cairo on September 22. GTEX programme is funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and is being implemented by the International Trade Centre (ITC), a joint agency of the World Trade Organisation and the United Nations. The initiative will also be aligned with the Textiles and Clothing Programme for Selected Middle East and North African countries (MENATEX), which is funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), an ITC press release said. The new project aims to support Egypt to build a sustainable export-oriented sector with increased sales to traditional and new markets, with a focus on creating long-term and sustainable employment, particularly for women and young people. ITC will implement the project in close partnership with the Egyptian Textiles, Apparel & Home Textiles (TA&HT) Export Council. The project is aligned with several of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, in particular, Goal 5 of achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls and Goal 9 of building resilient infrastructure, promoting inclusive and sustainable industrialisation and fostering innovation.

Zambian Vice President Inonge Wina recently held talks with India’s Shree Vagmi Cotton Ltd, which will invest $7 million in the next three years to build a factory to process cotton lint. The company has acquired a 26-acre land in Mwembeshi area of Chibombo district in the Central Province and would engage 23,000 cotton farmers in the country in two years. Wina was accompanied by Zambia’s high commissioner to India Judith Kapijimpanga. Vagmi has a cotton factory in Indore. Shree Vagmi chief executive officer Amit Dwivedi said his company would evolve from cotton ginning to a full textile company in 2020 and would resuscitate the once vibrant textile industry in Zambia, according to Zambian media reports. The company will be running a scheme under which it will supply farmers with seed, chemicals, wool packs and collect cotton from farming areas, he said. The company will also build houses for some Zambian staff running the factory.

Uzbekistan will introduce incentives for finished-goods exporters, according to a decree issued recently by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev. The decree will stimulate production and help develop the textile and leather-footwear industries, which will receive a range of tax benefits, including property and land taxes for three years, the justice ministry said. Exporters of semi-finished leather products will pay a 10 per cent duty, while yarn exporters will not not have to pay any duty, a news agency reported citing the decree. Foreign consultants working in the Uzbek textile industry and leather industry associations will pay only 50 per cent income tax. Uzbekistan is planning to reprocess all produced cotton domestically and increase the exports of textile products to worth $7 billion annually by 2025.

The Egyptian ministry of the public business sector recently launched a strategy to restructure all textile firms under the Cotton and Textile Industries Holding Company (CTIHC) to restore the stature of the textile industry in the domestic and global markets. It involves a plan to reduce the firms’ losses and raise profits with a total investment of EGP 21 billion. The strategy will be fully implemented by 2022. The government plans to quadruple textile and garment exports by 2025. The government has already started to implement a plan, at a cost of EGP 8 million, to have 17 centres in Fayoum and Beni Sweif governorates to receive cotton crop directly from farmers avoiding intermediaries. This system offers farmers the right to be paid 70 per cent of the sales price in cash, and that the remaining 30 per cent are to be paid within a week of the public auction, An Egyptian newspaper reporter quoted minister of the public business sector Hisham Tawfik as saying. As part of its vision 2025, Egypt also plans to establish a new integrated city for textile industries and to boost the sector with EGP 12 million. The plan involves setting up four new factories, modernising equipment in existing factories training workers. Chinese company Ningxia Mankai began in May construction of an industrial city for textile and clothing production, which will cover more than 3 million sq m and will host nearly 600 factories with investments worth $9 billion. The new city is expected to attain full capacity by the end of this year, the company said. However, Mohamed El-Morshedy, head of textile industry at the Federation of Egyptian Industries, said no action has been taken on the ground to modernise Egypt’s textile industry. The sector has failed to attract investments and even the Chinese company announced as the key investor in the new textile city has not taken any real strides to date, he said. The textile city announced is just ‘ink on paper’, with no action on the ground, he added.

Nigeria has set a target to produce up to 450,000 metric tonnes of cotton in three years as part of efforts to revive the domestic textile and garment industry, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria, whose governor Godwin Emefiele recently said around 300,000 farmers will be engaged to achieve this in 26 out of the 36 states in the country. To revive the sector, the bank had supervised the cultivation of 200,000 hectares of hybrid cotton distributed to 200,000 farmers across the country, according to a news agency report. The bank said it also spearheaded the import of improved cottonseed, adding that 6,000 metric tonnes were imported while additional 2,000 metric tonnes of cotton seeds were sourced locally. The total expected yield at the end of the current season is 302,440 metric tonnes.

A 2019-20 action plan to implement the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Belarusian state light industry concern Bellegprom and Uztekstilprom Association was agreed to during the recent Global Textile Days-Tashkent 2019 event. The plan stipulates measures to invigorate cooperation in textile, apparel and knitwear enterprises between both sides. Bellegprom chairwoman Tatiana Lugina met chairman of Uztekstilprom Association Ilkhom Khaidarov. The two sides sketched out prospects of trade and economic cooperation and worked out an road map for advancing cooperation, Bellegprom said on its website. A number of Belarusian companies now closely cooperate with enterprises in Uzbekistan and the possibility of opening proprietary Belarusian shops in the latter is under consideration.

Taiwan’s Eclat Textile Co is planning to invest $170 million in Indonesia to expand production, diversify risk and boost capacity. A board meeting recently approved the decision to route funds into Indonesia in three stages beginning October. The first phase investment will be over by 2020 end and build a garment factory to produce 1 million units per month. The investment aims to roll out products for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) market and China, the Taiwanese garment and fabric supplier said. The second stage will start in 2021 and build another garment plant, also with a monthly capacity of 1 million units. The third-stage investment will involve building of a weaving mill with a monthly capacity of 1 million kg. Eclat said construction of the weaving mill is scheduled to start in two years, and before that, the company will map out details about the investment through possible suppliers to set up a comprehensive supply chain for its Indonesia plant during the two years. Eclat is in talks with authorities of an industrial park as a possible destination for the investment but did not disclose where the industrial park is, according to a Taiwanese news media report. The company has overseas production sites in Vietnam, Cambodia and Lesotho.

The minimum wage for workers in the textile, garment and footwear sectors in Cambodia has increased to $190 for 2020, the labour ministry announced recently after a trilateral meeting. The National Committee for Minimum Wage decided $187 as the minimum, but Prime Minister Hun Sen added $3 more, the ministry said. The new wage will be effective from January 1. Besides the monthly minimum wage, workers will still receive other fringe benefits including an extra $10 per month for regular attendance and an extra $7 per month for transportation and rent, the ministry said. Labour minister Ith Samheng said that while Cambodia offers a minimum wage of about $190, Vietnam offers only $120 in some regions and Indonesia and Laos offer $110, according to Cambodian media reports. Nang Sothy, who represented employers during negotiations, said the new minimum wage was acceptable, but he appealed to the government to address better means of productivity. Pav Sina, the president of the Collective Union of Movement of Workers, said he welcomes the result and hopes that the ministry will consider the additional 13 requests, which unions have made to improve working conditions. The government has increased the minimum wage for garment workers every year since 2014. The 2019 minimum wage was set at $182 a month, an increase of $12 over last year’s $170.