Good news from the clothing, textile, footwear and leather (CTFL) industry, where thousands of jobs were lost after cheap Chinese imports reduced the market share of local manufacturers to under 10%.
Now recovery is well underway, guided by a master plan, with impressive results detailed in a Financial Mail feature.
“A once-flourishing industry is being stitched back together; new up-to-date capacity is being installed, sometimes in the very buildings that were shuttered when demand shifted to Asia; tens of thousands of people are being skilled or reskilled; and the government is moving to make life a little more difficult for manufacturers and importers that flout the rules”.
The FM reports that the sector is on track to meets the master plan objective of 65% local CTFL procurement by 2030.
This is localisation at its best – agreement by government, business and unions to rescue a failing industry. The result is local manufacture, local procurement and tens of thousands of local jobs.
