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CHAPTER TWO
The Global Clothing and Textile Industries
2.1 The Development of the Global Clothing Industry
In the first half of the 1900’s, the global clothing industry was dominated by countries such
as the United States of America, Great Britain and Japan. Over time, labour costs and
capital began to shift, and developing countries implemented strategies of import
substitution to encourage growth for their own domestic industrialisation. Part of this
strategy was the relaxation of labour codes and the offering of preferential duties, by
creating Export Processing Zones (EPZ) (Salinger, et al, 1999).
Prior to 2005 and the termination of global quotas, the clothing and textile industries were
dominated by the developed countries, but over the years since then, the dynamics of
global trade have changed, with the result that these industries are now dominated by the
developing countries, This chapter reviews these changes and the ongoing impact they
have on employment in the global clothing and textile industries. This review focuses on the
design function of clothing manufacture, which – through its potential to create unique,
highly marketable and desirable goods - is becoming increasingly significant in the face of
cheaper, mass-produced apparel flooding the global markets.
In 1974, the Multifibre Agreement (MFA) was initiated as the formal basis for “quantitative
restriction by developed countries against clothing and textile imports from developing
countries” (Naumann, 2005:1). According to Traub-Merz (2006: 9), in the 1960s, developing
countries accounted for only 15% of the world textile exports and less than 25% for the
world clothing exports, but by 2000, the figures had grown to 50% for textiles and 70% for
clothing.
The increase of exports originating from developing countries was and still is due to their
ability to lower the cost of production, thus providing international buyers and
manufacturers with cost incentives to either move their production facilities to these
favourable locations, or to order from factories located in countries such as China,
Vietnam, Bangladesh, India and Eastern Europe.
In 1995, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) established the Agreement on Textiles and
Clothing (ATC) as a multilateral instrument to regulate the removal of quotas over 10 years,
to be terminated on 1 January 2005 (Naumann, 2005:2).
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