ITGLWF voices concerns about African cotton growers crisis
19 Dec '05
3 min read
Neil Kearney, General Secretary of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation (ITGLWF) said the WTO needs urgently to find a solution to the crisis facing Africa's cotton growers and it needs to salvage the development objectives of the Doha Round.
“An ambitious linking of the cotton and aid for trade issues could be a very positive way forward”, he said.
Linking two of the controversial negotiating issues in the current WTO Ministerial Meeting – cotton and aid-for-trade – could help salvage some of the development objectives of the Doha Round, the Global Union Federation for the textile sector claimed.
"Today, 97 per cent of African-grown cotton is exported in raw form. Only 3 per cent of the production of the 33 countries growing cotton is processed on the continent."
Africa's garment industry which has struggled to develop in recent years is thus forced to import almost all of the fabric it utilises which in turn excludes most of its exports from benefiting from preferential access to industrialised markets under 'rules of origin' regulations, particularly in the European Community.
“In addition, the continent's garment industry lacks the backward linkages to woven and knitted fabric that are increasingly important in 'speed to market' requirements in exporting. A good example is Lesotho, which is struggling to maintain its garment exporting industry which is the backbone of the country's manufacturing employment. However, its progress is hampered by its dependence on imported fabric which lengthens its delivery capabilities and denies it preferential access to European markets."
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