The textile, clothing and footwear industry in Fiji is gearing up for bigger growth. Fiji’s niche is specialised products in small volumes. It is close to its main markets of Australia and New Zealand. The developing country preference offered by Australia at the beginning of this year has also opened some new doors as it offers better rules of origin.

SPARTECA (South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Co-operation Agreement ) is a nonreciprocal trade agreement where Australia and New Zealand offer duty-free and unrestricted access for specified products originating from the developing island member countries of the Pacific Islands Forum. However, low cost Asian competitors continue to attract bulk orders because of lower pricing. The challenge now is to convince buyers to come back to Fiji.

The industry is working on increasing exports and creating more employment. There has been a significant growth in employment numbers in the garment manufacturing factories with close to 8,000 staff now directly employed. This increase is attributed to the expansion of current manufacturers and a few new factories opening up. Work on revamping training facilities for the industry is going on. Meanwhile raw material inputs for the textile, clothing and footwear industries have been made duty-free. Sewing machinery, spare parts are duty-free as well.