Employment in the clothing sector has declined as increased garment imports have led to a drop in local production. The number of workers in the textile, knit mills and clothing industry dropped from 120000 in 1995 to 20000 in 2016, according to a report compiled last year by Helena Claassens of Cotton South Africa. Stuart Queen, CEO of Deneb Investments, which has a textile manufacturing division and specialises in knit cotton, said most yarn imports carried a duty of 15%. Finished garments and fabrics brought into South Africa at undeclared values remained a significant problem for the formal clothing and textile industry, he said. "We largely source our cotton yarn from regional sources. We do import certain yarns that are either not made locally or can't be sourced at competitive prices." The knitted fabric manufacturing segment had been a relatively stable part of the industry for "quite a few years". "The main reason for this is that there is usually less variety in the knitte...
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