Search Results for: Ethiopia

Political instability in the west African republic of Burkina Faso has been disrupting long-standing government plans to leverage the country’s cotton production to generate growth in its clothing and textile spinning, weaving, knitting, sewing and finishing segments.

The country’s cotton production is significant, with the US agriculture department predicting in September that production for the August 2022-July 2023 marketing year would be 1.15 million 480-pound bales.…

International solar energy providers are finding business opportunities in Africa as national governments and their development agency partners try to foster growth while targeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG), which encourages access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030 (1).…

The manufacture of technical textiles is in its nascency across North Africa, even more so in sub-Saharan Africa, with the continent having long been considered a low-cost, cut-and-sew destination rather than a production hub for value-added items. But due to the trend by European and US brands for near-shoring and diversification away from east Asian production, and the ambitions of certain African countries to develop a full manufacturing chain, the potential for making technical textiles in Africa is gradually emerging.…

The textile and fibre sectors of Ethiopia have been looking to expand domestic sakes as Ethiopia approaches one year anniversary of its exclusion of the USA’s Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). This process continues even as a new peace deal between the government and rebel Tigray forces is being rolled out, growing hope that Ethiopia may be readmitted to AGOA and its preferential US market access in 2023.…

An African garment and textile sector rebounding from the Covid-19 pandemic has seen strong export growth in the first three-quarters of 2022 start to sputter through a tightening of retail demand in Europe and the United States. These remain Africa’s two primary export markets and their consumers are reducing spending as inflation and recession concerns grow.…

The African knitwear manufacturing sector has been regaining ground lost during the Covid-19 pandemic, with established manufacturing hubs capitalising on the growing demand for nearshoring in Europe and to a lesser extent the USA. There are major investments under way in developing production capacity, particularly in West Africa.…

The Egyptian garment and textile sector has rebounded from the dip caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, with orders returning in 2021 and exports strong in the first half of 2022. Sluggish consumer demand in the country’s primary export markets of the USA and Europe has however seen orders weaken over the past third 2022 quarter.…

The US government is coming under increasing pressure to reinstate Ethiopia as a participant of its African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA), now a peace agreement has been signed to end a bloody civil conflict in the country. The Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have agreed to halt two years’ hostilities that the UN concluded had “intractable and deadly consequences” for civilians.…

As Ethiopia approaches the one-year anniversary since the USA’s Biden administration suspended the country from its African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) privileges over human rights abuses, a senior union leader hopes these rights will be restored in 2023. (1)

With the Ethiopian and rebel Tigray governments agreeing a ceasefire last week (Nov 2), to forge a long-term peace following two years’ armed conflict, Kassahun Follo, president of the Confederation of Ethiopian Trade Unions (CETU), an alliance of trade unions, said the AGOA expulsion led to a loss of more than 5,600 jobs in Ethiopia’s flagship Hawassa Industrial Park alone – a key textile and clothing manufacturing hub.…

The UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution on Sri Lanka on Thursday October 6 calling for accountability, human rights and reconciliation in this important clothing manufacturing outsourcing centre that has suffered from intense political and economic turmoil. There is growing international pressure on the new Sri Lanka government of President Ranil Wickremesinghe to promote calm (1) as the country grapples with financial shortages, logistical disruption and political legitimacy problems, worsened by widespread government corruption.…