• Transparency Report II: Have Hong Kong garment companies improved their reporting on labour standards? March 2009
   
  Oxfam Hong Kong's second Transparency Report released in March 2009 revisits the issue of transparency in Hong Kong garment sector supply chain operations which was raised the first time in 2006.
   
  The new report researches 26 major Hong Kong-based suppliers and clothing companies, rating them on how open and clear they are in reporting on the wages and conditions of the workers producing their goods.
   
  The report makes several recommendations that it expects will serve as a road map for better company reporting and labour standards compliance in the supply chain, and help foster collaborative action to eliminate workers’ rights abuses in global supply chains.
   
  For detail, please click here for the report.

• The "International Trade Statistics 2008" Report, November 2008

According to WTO’s latest "International Trade Statistics 2008" report released in November 2008, the clothing market’s share in the world’s total merchandise exports has progressively declined from 3.2% in 2000 to 2.5% in 2007 while the value of the clothing exports has increased by 12%, the same rate as in 2006.’s leading exporter accounting for one third of the global clothing exports, growth is a more modest 7%, trailing behind China’s growth of 21% which has gone down by 8% from 2006. 

For the report, please click here. Comments on clothing and textiles in the report concentrate in Section II: Merchandise Trade By Product (Page 40-47, and Page 104-116).

•  Eternal Hope to Reality: Sustained Global Competitiveness for the Indian Textile and Apparel Industry, October 2008

Please click here for detail.

•   Globalised Production Exploition in India, September 2008

"Presented by Alessandra Mezzadri, the scholar of The School of Oriental and African Studies of University of London, focusing on workers employed in Delhi, this paper investigates exploitation of informal sector workers in India’s garment industry. It looks at trends such as the incorporation of the informal economy into trans-national production networks in the Indian garment industry.

Please click here for detail.

• Labour rights in the supply chain and CSR in Bangladesh, June 2008

The Globalisation and Human Rights Desk (FIDH), assigned by Carrefour, has conducted a series of survey since 1997 on ways to improve working conditions at factories. This latest report, released in June 2008, assess labour rights in Bangladesh's export garment industry. It notes that working conditions in export garment factories had substantially improved over the last two years. Compliance with minimum wage payment has increased and deductions from wages as penalties are becoming rare. Factory owners have started to assign human resources, welfare or social compliance officer to whom complaints can be directed. However many issues of concern remain.

Please click here for the report or go to the ELDIS website for detail.

• Unveiling Protectionism, May 2008

The report is published by The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) of the United Nations in May 2008. It is the collection of papers and country reports that resulted from a project entitled “Weaving the Fabric of Regional Cooperation for Competitive Garment Exports: A Post-Quota Trading Environment (Phase 2). Part One includes seven chapters covering complex issues of post-quota trade and production adjustments in the world and the region, including the large exporters such as China and India and the role of trade facilitation. Efforts were made to provide current information on remaining protectionism in textile and clothing trade in both developed and developing markets. Countries covered through reports in Part Two are Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and Thailand.

Please click here for the report or go to the ESCAP website for detail.

• Clearing the Hurdles, April 2008

With the Beijing Olympics just months away, The International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers Federation (ITGLWF) presents the Play Fair Alliance review on the global sportswear industry and points out that the industry, despite of Play Fair's appeal in 2004 for improvement, is still plagued by lack of incentives, competing interests, institutional inertia and other "sweatshop" abuses. The report seeks to identify solutions to these persistent workplace problems, focusing on three central hurdles that, if not overcome, will inhibit the industry's ability to make real progress.

Please click here for this ITGLWF report.

• 2008 Turkish quota levels for China, February 2008

Turkey has extended its quota regime on a wide range for textile products from China again, with restrictions on 41 categories.

Please click here for PriceWaterHouse Coopers’s report on this.

• Asian Textile and Apparel Trade: Moving Forward with Regional Integration, January 2008

William E. James of the Asian Development Bank writes that suppliers of apparel from the South and Southeast Asian regions have expanded their market shares in the largest world market for clothing imports, the United States. However, they must redouble their efforts to improve their competitiveness as safeguard limits on shipments of clothing from the People’s Republic of China to the United States will be lifted on 31 December 2008. Regional cooperation to facilitate trade in textile intermediate products and other inputs in clothing production is an important option.

For the report, please click here.

• New labour contract laws to come into force in China, January 2008

With effect from 1 January 2008, China will introduce new labour contract laws, which will make it harder for companies to dismiss people.

For this PriceWaterHouseCoopers’ report, please click here.

• Year 2007 China Quota Utilisation, January 2008

The PriceWaterHouseCoopers has released its analysis on China’s quota utilization for December, 2007. For detail, please click here.

• Change in Treatment of Trademark Royalties, October 2007

The World Customs Organisation Technical Committee on Customs Valuation is expected to formally document two case studies on dutiable treatment of royalties next April 2008. The impact of the documentation would lead to millions of dollars in extra customs duty of certain branded products.

The PriceWaterHouseCoopers’ analysis reveals the latest development. Please click here for the analysis.

• Clothing and Export Diversification: Still a Route to Growth for LICs? September 2007

Can the clothing sector be a driver of export diversification and growth for today’s low-income countries as it was in the past for countries that have graduated into middle income? The World Bank's paper assesses this issue taking into account key changes to the market for clothing.

To assess the importance of the factors shaping the global clothing market, the authors estimate a gravity model to explain jointly the propensity to export clothing and the magnitude of exports from developing countries to the EU and US markets. This analysis identifies the quality of governance as an important determinant of sourcing decisions and that there appears to be a general bias against sourcing apparel from African countries, which is only partially overcome by trade preferences.

Please click here for the paper.

• CRS Report for the US Congress, July 2007

The report, released in July of 2007 by the Congressional Research Service prepared for members and Committees of Congress of the United States, asserted that there is no clear correlation between the decline of US textile industry and the surge in US apparel imports from China; and that after the termination of the ATC quotas, most nations of textile and apparel production were able to maintain the value in exports, while China was able to increase its share of the global and U.S. markets by capturing most of the market growth.

The report adds pertinent views for the textile debate in the US congress in determining the next move affecting many sectors.

Please click here for the report.

• IMF Report on Bangladesh, June 2007

According to the report released by the International Monetary Fund in June 2007, after gaining in market share together with other five LIC producers (Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam) in the last several years, Bangladesh will face much greater competition in its two largest garment export markets, USA and Canada, in the near future as the safeguard restrictions on China are due to expire in 2008 and the emergence of Vietnam as its head-to-head competitor in the related markets.

To maintain its competitiveness, the report suggests Bangladesh to improve in labour conditions, infrastructure, and governance of FDI, as well as to explore new markets at least in large Asian countries such as Japan, China and India.

Please click here for the report.

• Eighteenth Synthesis Report on Working Conditions in Cambodia’s Garment Sector, April 2007

Better Factories Cambodia is a unique programme of the International Labour Organization aiming to improve working conditions in Cambodia’s export garment factories.

Starting from 2001, the programme has been monitoring the garment factories in Cambodia. The latest report, 18th in the series released on April 30, 2007, summarizes information about working conditions and labour standards in these factories.

Please click here for the report.

• CENTAD South Asian Yearbook of Trade and Development, March 2007

The report’s chapter on textile and clothing suggests that countries in the South Asian region can form a major textile and apparel hub – provided they can work together. Right now, mutual mistrust and trade barriers against each other, are stopping SAARC countries from cashing in on a waiting opportunity.

The Centre for Trade and Development (Centad) is an independent, not-for-profit organization in India. The chapter on textile and clothing is complied by two expects from the UNDP, Asia Pacific Regional Center, Sri Lanka.

Click here for the chapter.

• Women and Work in the Cambodian Garment Industry, February 2007

The report, commissioned by ILO and the World Bank, provides detailed data on critical issues identified concerning women workers: health and nutrition, breastfeeding, childcare, personal safety, and various forms of workplace harassment.

The findings and recommendations help the stakeholders - Government, Employer’s and Worker’s Organizations, Non Governmental and fellow United Nations Organizations - to be able to better understand, communicate and improve the wellbeing of women workers through development of appropriate policies and pragmatic new approaches at the workplace level.

Please click here for the report.

• ADB Asian Development Outlook 2006 Update

The Asian Development Bank points out in its report, 'Asian Development Outlook 2006 Update' published in September 2006, that the fears of the end of MFA at the end of 2004 were exaggerated as over the last 18 months, while marginal Asian and Pacific developing country suppliers, along with former large quota holders, have seen market shares in the USA and Europe markets evaporate in 2005, a number of competitive Asian suppliers have done relatively well. In fact, they have outperformed non-Asian preferential suppliers in both markets with Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam all competing effectively. Going forward, it is likely that the PRC will lose some of the rapid gains it made in market share in 2005 and preferential non-Asian suppliers will continue to see contraction while other Asian suppliers increase their market shares.

Click the following link for the report:

http://www.adb.org/documents/books/ado/2006/part010400.asp

• UNDP The 2006 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, Trade on Human Terms

The 2006 Asia-Pacific Human Development Report, Trade on Human Terms, launched by UNDP in late August 2006, examines from an Asia-Pacific perspective the changes required in the world’s trading system, as envisioned in the Global Partnership for Development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It draws on the diverse experiences of the region to propose a development strategy that effectively combines trade liberalisation with the promotion of poverty reduction and human development.

Due to the importance of textiles and clothing sector to the Asia-Pacific economy, the report has a full chapter analyzing the development of the key T&C players in the region since the MFA era concluded at the end of 2004 and suggests a national policy directions including six aspects: decent work, environmental protection, offsetting the effects of quota elimination, international measures to increase market access, anti-dumping and countervailing duties, and promoting South-South cooperation.

Click the following link for the full report: www.undprcc.lk/rdhr2006/rdhr2006_report.asp

• World Trade Report, 2006

The phase-out of textiles and clothing quotas was expected to accentuate the replacement of domestic production in high-income countries by suppliers from lower-income countries, in particular China. However, the removal of quotas in 2005 produced only a limited impact on textiles and clothing production, employment and price levels in the EU and the United States that year. With the exception of EU clothing output, production declines observed in preceding years continued without any deepening at the aggregate level. The decline of employment in the textiles and clothing industry did not accelerate, and prices of textiles and clothing in the EU and the United States largely remained flat, as in preceding years. The most visible change post-quota was that shipments to the EU and the United States by some major suppliers that had benefited from the ATC quota system were partly displaced by increased supplies from other sources, in particular China, India, Turkey and Bulgaria.

Click here for the full report (pdf file)

• Flying Coulours, Broken Threads: One Year of Evidence from Asia after the Phase-out of Textiles and Clothing Quotas
  
  The United National Development Programme (UNDP) released a report in December 2005 reflecting on Asia's trade in textiles and clothing with the two major import markets, USA and the EU, for the nine-month period following the phase out of quotas. This report is written by Ratnakar Adhikari and Yumiko Yamamoto under the guidance of Manuel F. Montes as part of the work programme of the UNDP Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Initiative. The report also benefited from additional background inputs provided by the national consultants from three countries: Philippines (Joseph Francia); Nepal (Navin Dahal); and Sri Lanka (Ceylon Chamber of Commerce).
  
  Click here for the full report (pdf file).

• Promoting Fair Globalization in Textiles and Clothing in a Post-MFA Environment
  
  A new study prepared by the International Labour Organisation for the tripatite meeting of business, labour and government leaders from key textile and clothing producing and consuming countries in Geneva from 24-26 October 2005 under the aegis of the ILO says that despite widespread concern that the lifting of global textile and clothing quotas in January 2005 would be a labour and trade catastrophe for many developing countries, the results thus far of the phasing out of the MFA have been a mixed bag. The report, Promoting fair globalization in textiles and clothing in a post-MFA environment, presents the most up-to-date global picture of labour issues in the textiles and clothing industry.
  
  Click here for the full report (pdf file).

• Transnational Corporations and the Removal of Textiles & Clothing Quotas
  
  The expiration of the quota system has important implications for the allocation of export-oriented production and is likely to affect in various ways a large number of developing countries that rely heavily on such exports. Drawing on a wide range of studies as well as on original research, this report shows that transnational corporations (TNCs) are likely to play a critical role in determining the future global production structure in these industries. As TNCs become more important at the production stage, their bargaining power increases vis-à-vis retailers in developed economies.
  
  With the removal of quotas, sourcing and investment decisions are affected more by economic fundamentals. But low labour costs alone will not be sufficient to attract investment. There is likely to be more consolidation of production into larger factories in a smaller number of locations. China and India are likely to be in a particularly strong position in this new geography of production, but various factors may also work against too much consolidation.
  
  The removal of quotas generally means intensified competition for FDI in textiles and clothing. To become or stay competitive as host locations, countries will need to develop their ability to move away from simple assembly to “full-package” production and eventually original brand manufacture. Key policy areas in this regard include identification of specialized niches; skills training and technological upgrading; investment in information technology; improvement of infrastructure such as ports and export processing zones; and leveraging of existing tariff preferences in the global trading system. Moreover, investment promotion agencies may identify some of the major transnational producers as key addressees for future marketing activities.
  
  Click here for the full report, part of a new series on FDI & Development published by UNCTAD.