Once a vibrant sector, Uganda’s textile industry is in a crisis. The African country was a leading exporter of quality cotton until a few years ago, but its exports have dropped in recent years.

The industry is largely dominated by ginneries, estimated to be around 25 throughout the country, whose final product is just raw cotton. One of the reasons for lower production capacity as well as poor quality of Ugandan cotton is that the crop is mainly grown in areas that are not easily accessible. Only five per cent of the cotton grown in Uganda is utilized domestically, and the rest of it is exported, mainly in the raw form. This fetches a low economic value - which has discouraged many potential traders.

Cheap textile and clothing imports from China and Asia have flooded the domestic market, which has seriously injured the industry. This has resulted in the loss of productive capacity, factory closure, redundancy and retrenchment in some cases.

The sector is affected by lack of technically qualified and experienced personnel and lack of incentives to Ugandans to invest in the textile industry. There is also government reluctance to completely ban imports of second-hand clothes such as T-shirts, socks, under wear and counterfeit textile products.