The textiles industry has traditionally been strategically vital for emerging economies and seen as a key foundation for industrialisation. Given there is a relatively low barrier to entry and labour costs in emerging markets tend to be lower, the sector has often served as a means for countries to establish an industrial base, encourage industrialisation, and grow their economies.
Nowhere did this strategy pay higher dividends than in Asia. As the International Finance Corporation (IFC) explains, the "Asian Tigers," economies - which grew rapidly in the later part of the twentieth century by producing cheap textile goods for export abroad - enjoyed enormous success with this approach.
The countries "rebuilt and reimagined their postwar economies by mobilising colossal numbers of low-skilled and low-paid textile workers; putting them to work in efficient factories; developing modern ports that could deliver goods to important markets; and then weaving together regional - and later global - value chains," the IFC notes."Between the early 1960s and the mid-1990s, the Asian Tigers transformed their economies into textile and apparel powerhouses. They then turned their industry-building knowledge - including skills, education, and government policies, among others - to assembling what is arguably the most complex and important manufacturing region in the world, producing goods ranging from tee-shirts to satellites, and generating enormous wealth for their economies and higher living standards for their people," the organisation adds.
Originally published by African Business.