Yahneake Sterling, Staff Reporter
Factory workers assemble garments to be exported abroad on the outskirts of the Laotian capital Vientiane on May 2. Jamaica's garment exports is competing with very low cost competitors like these in Asia. - REUTERS
JAMAICA'S APPAREL exports, which have tumbled over the past decade in the face of competition from NAFTA and the loss of preferences provided by the Multi-Fibre agreement, slumped over 82 per cent last year, to US$37.8 million, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) reported this week.
During its heyday of the 1980s up to the early 1990s, Jamaica's textile exports, with a preferential market in the United States under the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), reached over US$500 million a year.
But when the U.S. and its partners to the north and south launched the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), textile manufacturers bolted from Jamaica to Mexico to enjoy quota-free access to America. High production costs in Jamaica did not help.
By the start of this decade the island's textile exports had tumbled to under US$90 million - and has continued to decline with the phasing-out under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the Multi-Fibre Agreement that allowed developed countries to set quotas and tariffs.
CHEAP PRODUCERS
The upshot: the emergence of China and other cheap producers in Asia as the textile and apparel powerhouses.
Over the past decade more than 20,000 jobs have been lost in Jamaica's apparel sector that at one stage employed over 30,000 people, mainly women.
"The decline (in apparel exports) continued despite initiatives to aid the industry, such as the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act," the Planning Institute of Jamaica said in its just released Economic and Social Survey.
Under this 2000 Act by the U.S. Congress beneficiary countries are exempt from duty on specific items of apparel if they are manufactured using fabric and yarn from the United States.
"The industry was also affected by the cessation of apparel exports to the U.S.A. and Europe by two key exporters due to high operational costs," the PIOJ added. "Consequently, apparel exports to the U.S.A. and Europe fell by 50.8 per cent and 98.3 per cent," respectively.
In the decline, the export of cut, make, trim garments ? where the product is manufactured from start to finish rather than just being assembled here ? dropped by 55 per cent to US$5.9 million. "In addition, exports under the Cabin Basin Partnership agreement declined by 50 per cent," said the PIOJ.
Despite the hard knocks endured by the apparel industry, some Jamaican officials apparently remain optimistic that it is salvageable.
For instance, Jamaica Exporters Association (JEA) president, Dr. Andre Gordon argued that the industry could move forward there "the findings of several studies" on the sector were examined and the critical recommendations implemented.
Most of these studies recommend a move to high fashion and selected niches by the industry, Gordon said.
The JEA, Gordon said, was working with a medium term goal to revive the industry through the use of sea island cotton grown in Jamaica.
"Hopefully it will be integrated into higher-end garments that can be turned into retail sales in collaboration with local producers," he said.
Sea island cotton is a long-staple, high-quality cotton grown in a handful of east Caribbean islands, particularly, Barbados and Antigua. Most of the output is sold to Japan at a premium. There have been proposals since the early 1990s to grow the cotton in Jamaica on a commercial scale, but although there has been some experimental crops nothing substantial has happened.
Sameer Younis, a one-time president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce who operates a chain of textile stores, agrees that the Jamaica industry has now to look to specialised niches if it is to survive.
The high cost of doing business in Jamaica, Younis warned, will lead "to more exporters packing up" unless there was a strategic implementation of programmes to save the sector.
