A comparative analysis of the level of competitiveness of the South African Clothing and Textile Industry

Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences

 
 
Field Value
 
Title A comparative analysis of the level of competitiveness of the South African Clothing and Textile Industry
 
Creator van Zyl, Gerhardus Matswalela, Kagiso
 
Subject South African clothing and textile industry; emerging markets; low-cost competitors; revealed comparative advantage indices (RCA); fixed-effect panel data estimation; labour unit cost; real effective exchange rate; exports-share
Description The aim of the article is to perform a comparative competitor benchmark analysis of the level of competitiveness of the South African clothing and textile industry (CAT industry). The article employs both Revealed Comparative Advantage (RCA) indices and fixed-effect panel data estimates in order to perform an analysis of the level of competitiveness of the South African CAT industry. The study includes export data from 1990-2013 for 18 sample emerging markets. The RCA indices indicate that the South African CAT industry has comparative disadvantages in both the clothing and textile sectors. Asian CAT industries are inclined towards a more dominant comparative advantage when compared to other emerging markets in both the clothing and textile sectors. The indices indicate a large and widening gap between the levels of competitiveness of the South African CAT industry and the CAT industries of sample countries (especially India and China). The fixed-effect panel data estimates suggest that increasing unit labour costs and declining export shares can be viewed as major determinants of the increasing lack of competitiveness of the South African CAT industry. The results of this article point to a mounting crisis in the South African CAT industry, most especially in terms of job losses and declining exports markets. Proper policy responses from the government, industrialist, retailers, labour unions and other stakeholders within the economy (such as banks and development finance institutions) are required.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor
Date 2016-08-11
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion —
Format application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/jef.v9i2.47
 
Source Journal of Economic and Financial Sciences; Vol 9, No 2 (2016); 370-391 2312-2803 1995-7076
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://jefjournal.org.za/index.php/jef/article/view/47/44
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2017 Gerhardus van Zyl, Kagiso Matswalela https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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