South Africa By Etienne Vlok TEXTILE AND CLOTHING INDUSTRY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 1. Introduction The South African clothing and textiles industry has a long history. It has been and remains a very significant source of employment, particularly for women. It is concentrated in certain geographical areas, particularly provinces like the Western Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, the Free State and Gauteng and cities like Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg as well as certain rural areas(such as industrial towns in the former homelands). In the traditional geographic concentrations, the industry has existed for many decades, is rooted in the unique history and cultural traditions of these areas, and provides a significant proportion of employment. In its rural concentrations, the industry is often the only source of formal employ­ment and very many families are dependent on it for their survival. This geo­graphic and demographic profile has resulted in tremendous social costs resulting from the industry’s recent crisis and the resulting loss of employment. Historically, three phases of the development of the textiles and clothing industry can be identified, linked to the level of protection and competition from international trade. Before democratisation and South Africa’s integration into the world trading system, the clothing and textiles industry(like many other) were focussed on import substitution. The industry was highly protected and focussed almost exclusively on the domestic market. This allowed inefficiencies to go un­checked, and resulted in a failure to become internationally competitive(and, therefore, a failure to develop significant export capacity) and a concentration of production in low value-added products. Nevertheless, a number of high quality, high value-added producers, such as manufacturers of men’s formal shirts, suits and other tailored garments came into being and achieved success both in the domestic and export markets. After the end of apartheid rule, South Africa(SA) joined the World Trade Or­ganisation(WTO) in 1994 and opened its market to international trade. During the late 1990s and early 2000s the South African currency, the Rand, depreciated steadily, eventually being significantly undervalued, and combined with an incentive scheme(the Duty Credit Certificate Scheme) allowed the industry to rapidly increase FRIEDRICH-EBERT-STIFTUNG 227