East, West…is Home Best? Can the Kenya Textile and Apparel Industry Survive the Onslaught from China,Europe and America?
From the east, China is singularly the biggest supplier of apparel in East Africa region and beyond.New, affordable, trending, low cost clothing is easily available, from the big cities to the smallest village store in rural Kenya.This provides an alternative to the mitumba or used clothing that continues to flood markets across Kenya for decades from the west.The mitumba provide cheap, durable, stylish used clothing available to consumers of all walks of life.With these two giant sources of apparel from the East and the West, the local textiles and apparel industry struggles to survive.In February 2016, the East African Community heads of state banned the import of mitumba to safeguard the local textile and apparel industry.However, the ban was quickly postponed for three years, to come into effect in 2018.This paper seeks to address the following questions using literature on apparel consumption behaviour in Kenya.The questions follow:What are the benefits and pitfalls of imports from China?Can the local textile industries survive the onslaught of Chinese goods and the mitumba industry? What is the government doing to protect textile and apparel production in Kenya?In what ways can the Kenyan populace be persuaded to learn and to change their habits of apparel purchase and disposal, towards sustainable apparel consumption?This paper seeks to address these questions using literature.It also explores government policies that can influence consumers and safeguard the local industry and the environment.
China imports sustainable consumption mitumba sustainable environment apparel trade
Ruth J L Cheluget Anne Mastamet-Mason
Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa
国际会议
2016 Sino-Africa International Symposium on Textiles and Apparel (SAISTA2016)(2016中非纺织服装国际论坛)
蒙巴萨
英文
338-345
2016-08-02（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）