Kenya: Stagnation in the Liberalized Markets

Abstract

Development of the garment industry lags far behind in sub-Saharan Africa in comparison with Asia and Latin America. With few exceptions, African apparel products do not have a significant share in the export market, and even in the local market, they almost vanished due to a massive increase in imports, including secondhand products, after trade liberalization in the 1990s. Kenya used to have the largest cluster in the garment and textile industry in East Africa, but it downsized drastically after 1994 when trade liberalization became effective. Nowadays, local garment firms are specializing in uniforms, and the local market is dominated by imported apparel. Exports increased sharply after 2000 in several sub-Saharan African countries including Kenya, supported by the preferential access to the US market bestowed upon the region, but the growth trend disappeared in 2005. The quota system binding large exporters was abolished at the end of 2004, causing a concentration of orders in competitive countries, typically China. Though it seemed to make a solid, albeit late start in export-oriented industrialization, the African garment industry has failed to continue growing except Madagascar. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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