Word: garments
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Every morning, 24-year-old Shahida Begum leaves her home in one of Dhaka's slums, winds her way into a posh diplomatic enclave and turns up for work at a garment factory overlooking the U.S. embassy. She may not be making this commute much longer. Like most of Bangladesh's 1.8 million textile workers, she has heard rumors that the American and European companies that currently buy clothes from her country will switch to Chinese manufacturers next year?leading to closures of garment factories in Dhaka. The zero-sum math of globalization makes little sense...
...Shahzad Arshad, a leading apparel exporter in Pakistan, says he fears a disaster looms for his industry. Pakistan has been one of the main beneficiaries of the current system. When China and India maxed out on their annual quotas, American buyers often turned to Pakistan. Its garment industry earned two-thirds of the country's export dollars last year. But Arshad fears that at least 60% of the 2 million Pakistanis who work in the ready-made garments sector could lose their jobs in coming years. "The new regime will wipe out thousands of small and medium-size exporters," says...
...Similar concerns are rife in Sri Lanka, where textiles and garments make up half of the country's exports, and the industry supports as many as 1 million workers. In Nepal, where more than 300,000 workers depend directly or indirectly on the garment sector for their livelihood, extending the quota system "is a matter of life or death," says Prashant Pokhrel, a Nepali exporter. Experts in Bangladesh fear that anywhere from $1.25 billion to $2.5 billion of that country's annual exports could be lost, with the shock waves rippling through the nation's banking sector and the entire...
...currency to keep it undervalued against the U.S. dollar, thereby making its exports cheaper than Bangladesh's. But even if its currency were to rise against the dollar, China would still have tremendous advantages. According to data compiled in a recent International Monetary Fund working paper, the average Chinese garment-industry worker was paid $1,600 in 2001, more than double his Indian counterpart's salary and four times what he'd make in Bangladesh. Despite the Chinese worker's higher pay, the study found his productivity was significantly higher: he adds $5,000 a year in value...
...boost if the U.S. textile industry persuades Washington to restrict clothing imports from China for a few more years. Representatives of several Asian governments are doing their own lobbying in the U.S. capitol, hoping to gain protection for at least three more years. Without special treatment, garment industries in countries such as Nepal are likely to become a free-trade casualty, says exporter Pokhrel: "Death is the only prediction we can make...