Fiji clothing manufacturers in NZ plea
21 February 2014
A Fiji business delegation of senior trade officials and representatives of five garment manufacturers is visiting New Zealand this week in a bid to revive the island nation’s clothing industry.
“New Zealand at one stage was Fiji’s biggest market for our textile, clothing and footwear exports and has now slipped to second position after Australia,” Fiji Trade and Investment Bureau chief executive Lailun Khan said.
The governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, Savenaca Narube, late last year expressed concern over a widening trade deficit, and said that he expected the Fiji garment industry to decline a further 20 per cent during 2014.
Fiji last year lost a $F130 million ($NZ110m) annual garment quota in the United States and faces the prospect of losing market share in Australia as tariffs on Chinese garments imported into Australia are reduced.
The bank predicted the Fiji manufacturing sector would “shrink considerably” as a result of the closure of factories that employed about 4000 people.
Ms Khan told the Fiji Times that New Zealand’s continued reduction in tariffs on imported clothing had implications for the competitiveness of Fiji’s clothing products.
She said that Fiji was close to New Zealand and had direct shipping and air links, so the mission wanted to promote it as a production base for small volume orders.
“New Zealand is no longer a garment manufacturing country and has shifted its focus to fashion design,” she said.
“This mission provides an opportunity to our garment manufacturers to re-explore the prospects of increasing our textile, clothing and footwear exports by meeting…wholesalers and fashion designers.”
The delegation includes executives of United Apparel, Jacks Garments, Southtex Fiji Ltd, Natson’s Ltd, Overalls and Raincoats Manufacturing Ltd.
