( 5minutes read)
· Zambia is spending heavily for importing clothes, despite being endowed with a climatic condition conductive for cotton cultivation, processing and conversion into textiles and apparels
· Imports of textiles to meet the domestic demand have been draining the country’s foreign exchange resources
· According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the production of cotton has been declining from about 260,000 metric tonnes in 2012 to about 41,000 metric tonnes in 2020
Zambia is spending heavily for importing clothes, despite being endowed with a climatic condition conducive for cotton cultivation, processing and conversion into textiles and apparels. Imports of textiles to meet the domestic demand have been draining the country’s foreign exchange resources. For seven years or so, cotton production in the Southern African country is going down impairing the textile industry.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture, the production of cotton has been declining from about 260,000 metric tonnes in 2012 to about 41,000 metric tonnes in 2020, a huge drop, while some of the African countries have upped both production and productivity. This has led to lackluster performance of the textile industry compared to other African countries.
The poor performance of the cotton sub-sector can be attributed to gaps in the current legislation, such as the lack of oversight over the entire cotton value chain. The government is presently toying with the idea of revising the Cotton Act in order to protect mainly the local farmers and to unlock the potentials of the textile sector to reduce dependence on excessive imports.
The consultations for review is already on and the government is talking to the stakeholders to ascertain their feedback as to how to revise the Cotton Act so that the legislation responded to the demands of the industry players and encourage more and more farmers to switch over to cotton cultivation. The amended policy also would seek to promote not only import substitution of textiles but also would build capacities for export.
Towards activating the textile sector, the government has set up a task force, which is working on the process of amending the Cotton Act. The terms of reference for the task force, will be discussed in the upcoming stakeholder meeting and finalized after ascertainingtheir views and comments. Not alon e cotton, the government is considering strategies for enhancing productivity of other agricultural crops to help reduce dependence on imports.
Despite having suitable soil and weather conditions to grow Cotton, Zambia is currently a net importer of clothes and apparel. Once the crop starts giving adequate production, Zambia proposes to up several activities in the textile value chain including processing and manufacturing of apparels. There is a new thinking in the country to up its domestic production rather than depending on imports. Heavy imports of even those items which can be produced locally are causing heavy outflow of precious foreign exchange, creating s situation for the domestic currency -Kwacha-to perpetually depreciate as against major currencies, making imports costlier.
