Search Results for: Kenya

The Great Lakes region in cenztral and eastern Africa is exceedingly resource rich, and being beset by instability and conflict, it is highly attractive for illicit trade and financial crime fuelling money laundering. A new European Union (EU) Great Lakes Strategy is trying to promote the rule of law in the region – notably Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – but faces major challenges.…

Kenya is being opened as a potential outsourcing centre for European Union (EU) knitwear brands by a new EU-Kenya Economic Partnership agreement, now being considered for ratification by the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament (1). Once implemented, the deal will remove 12% and 9.6% EU duties charged on many knitted apparel exports from Kenya, potentially boosting a knitted apparel and accessory trade, growing in recent years.…

Kenya’s government has proposed imposing a 25% tariff increase on imported clothing and textiles, a move designed to wean Kenyans off luxury imported clothes, supporting a domestic clothing and textile industry that has been harmed deeply by foreign-made garment sales.

Confirming the intention to introduce the new tax measures, investments, trade and industry cabinet secretary (minister) Moses Kuria said the new taxes would help Kenya’s textile and clothing industry: “The country has a rich textile sector that should be expanded,” said Kuria on August 14, while addressing Kenyan textile investors.…

Kenya remains east Africa’s economic powerhouse and its ability to supply and encourage the region’s paint and coatings sector remains strong. Sales in paints, varnishes, pigments and other related coatings are expected to grow by 2.86% annually until 2028, according to insights from Statista (1), a Germany-based provider of market intelligence and business solutions.…

A desire to contribute to nation-building and improve standards of universities within Somalia is luring Somali intellectuals to return home to work in academia.

Professor Abdullahi Barise, the founding president of the City University of Mogadishu, said his institutions and others were welcoming this increasing number of foreign-educated Somalia lecturers and professors.…

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.…

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.…

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.…