Apparel Sourcing Intelligence - Worldwide

5th November 2014

US September import growth highest for over a year – possibly through port congestion fears.

America's apparel imports in September - maybe distorted by worries about congestion and labour troubles in US ports - showed their fastest year on year growth for over a year,...

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29th September 2014

Ethiopia’s export targets look increasingly surreal as tiny customer base revealed

56% of Ethiopia's apparel exports are made by just one Turkish company - and 85% of its Ethiopian manufacture goes to quirky German retailer Tchibo, as the bizarre hype over...

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16th July 2014

Small factory in Rwanda becomes “next sourcing hotspot” in 24 hours

The Rwandan government announced on July 13 a deal with a Chinese business to set up a 200-employee garment factory in its Kigali Special Economic Zone. Within 24 hours, the...

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25th June 2014

Ethiopian conundrum confuses observers

During 2014, Clothesource has received more announcements of ambitious textile and garment expansion plans from Ethiopia than from almost any other manufacturing country. Yet, after announcements of Ethiopian orders from...

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1st May 2014

VF and PVH show interest as Kenyans “launch” proposed Textile City

VF and PVH were among garment buyers attending the Kenyan government's "launch" of a proposed Textile City on April 30. The official plan appears as insubstantial as most similar announcements...

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28th October 2013

Ethiopia opens more textile factories – but limited signs of success

The Ethiopian government announced a further 58 textile export factories on September 28, amid signs of an increasingly chaotic programme to develop a significant garment and textile export programme. In...

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19th October 2013

Patagonia to launch Fair Trade Certified™ clothing as Ethiopian factory gains first footwear certification

Outdoor apparel specialist Patagonia announced in late September that it would launch the first range of Fair Trade Certified™ clothing from a major supplier in autumn 2014. A week earlier,...

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21st August 2013

Why Ethiopia isn’t Morocco. Especially if you’re making clothes

However off the mark trade associations and political activists usually are about the garment industry, they rarely get things so spectacularly wrong as investment analysts. To take home their spectacular...

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21st August 2013

Ethiopian garment exports fall, though European brands’ trial grow

Though local trade spokesmen claimed H&M, Tesco and Walmart’s Asda had begun Ethiopian garment production trials in 2013, the country’s garment exports to the EU and US fell drastically in...

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15th January 2013

Ethiopia exports growing – but way behind plan

Ethiopia's apparel exports have, according to Clothesource Tradetrak, trebled in volume since 2008 - making it one of the world's fastest growing sources. But in the first three quarters of...

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30th August 2011

Indian company opens spinning plant in Ethiopia and expects large cotton harvest

From http://www.ethiopiainvestor.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2559&Itemid=88 Indian based CLC Industries Plc will harvest by next month the first 2,500 hectares of cotton from the 25,000 hectares of farm land they recently leased. CLC Industries are...

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11th October 2010

Diplomats just don’t get it. 1

Rules of origin are tricky things to understand. But someone's got to. And among those someones are diplomats from countries whose economy depends on these complicated footnotes to the world trading...

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