Competitiveness, Productivity, and Job Quality in the Pakistan Garment Industry
COMPETITIVENESS, PRODUCTIVITY, AND JOB QUALITY
IN THE PAKISTAN GARMENT INDUSTRY by MAJYD AZIZ EX-CHAIRMAN, SITE ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY MEMBER MANAGING COMMITTEE, EMPLOYERS’ FEDERATION OF PAKISTAN
[Presented at the South Asian Subregional Meeting on Competitiveness, Productivity, and Job Quality in the Garment Industry, organized by ILO, in Kathmandu, Nepal,
September 25-26, 2001
PRELUDE:
The Asian countries have been a formidable source of mass-scale and affordable apparel for the North American and European markets. The reliance on the Asian garment producers resulted into a scenario where the international trade in textiles and garments intertwined the interests of various economies of the world, whether the developed ones or those that are categorized as developing nations. The textile trade became the focal point for development of a system that would regulate world business. All thru the past many decades, the global trade in textiles and clothing was governed by a multiplicity of restrictive measures and quotas that were intensely negotiated under specific agreements. Under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff, the Short Term Arrangement was established to cover cotton trade from September 1961 to August 1962. However, the developed countries continued to impose their fiat and this led to the introduction of a Long Term Arrangement to regulate cotton textile trade upto 1973.
The impact of the Asian countries on world textile trade was instrumental in the development of a mechanism that laid emphasis on quantitative restrictions on textiles and clothing. These restrictions were governed under the first Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) that commenced in 1974 while three more such arrangements extended the MFA till the last day of 1994. The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) replaced the MFA in 1995 and aims towards phasing out textile quotas over a ten-year period that would end on January 01, 2005. Under the ATC, the
IN THE PAKISTAN GARMENT INDUSTRY by MAJYD AZIZ EX-CHAIRMAN, SITE ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY MEMBER MANAGING COMMITTEE, EMPLOYERS’ FEDERATION OF PAKISTAN
[Presented at the South Asian Subregional Meeting on Competitiveness, Productivity, and Job Quality in the Garment Industry, organized by ILO, in Kathmandu, Nepal,
September 25-26, 2001
PRELUDE:
The Asian countries have been a formidable source of mass-scale and affordable apparel for the North American and European markets. The reliance on the Asian garment producers resulted into a scenario where the international trade in textiles and garments intertwined the interests of various economies of the world, whether the developed ones or those that are categorized as developing nations. The textile trade became the focal point for development of a system that would regulate world business. All thru the past many decades, the global trade in textiles and clothing was governed by a multiplicity of restrictive measures and quotas that were intensely negotiated under specific agreements. Under General Agreement on Trade and Tariff, the Short Term Arrangement was established to cover cotton trade from September 1961 to August 1962. However, the developed countries continued to impose their fiat and this led to the introduction of a Long Term Arrangement to regulate cotton textile trade upto 1973.
The impact of the Asian countries on world textile trade was instrumental in the development of a mechanism that laid emphasis on quantitative restrictions on textiles and clothing. These restrictions were governed under the first Multi-Fiber Arrangement (MFA) that commenced in 1974 while three more such arrangements extended the MFA till the last day of 1994. The Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) replaced the MFA in 1995 and aims towards phasing out textile quotas over a ten-year period that would end on January 01, 2005. Under the ATC, the