Latin America's textile industry seeks rebound

Countries such as Brazil resorted to their own huge domestic market, while Argentina and Colombia diversified production to find new ways of staying afloat.

Still, the region's garment industry is anticipating a modest rebound in sales in 2010 through both expansion in foreign markets and protective measures instituted by national industries.

In some countries of the region, local factors have had an equal or greater impact than that of the world crisis.

Brazil's strong domestic market, about 80 percent of total sales, helped lessen the effect of global crisis; however, the country was still hurt by falling exports.

In 2009, exports, excluding cotton fiber, dropped by some 40 percent, said Texbrasil, which helps Brazilian companies to promote their products in export markets.

Colombia's textile and apparel industry is the third pillar of the national economy. In the last two years the sector has had difficulties exporting to Venezuela, a situation that worsened in 2009 because of the state of political relations between the countries.

The problem is particularly troubling for Colombia as its neighbor accounts for some 65 percent of Colombia's exports, said the Instituto para la Exportacion y la Moda (InexModa).

In Argentina, facing ridiculous product prices due to the drop in global consumption, applications for non automatic import licenses (LNA) have risen from 10 to 160, said representatives of the Fundacion Pro-Tejer, whose goal is to develop, integrate and promote the textile and apparel industry.

In addition, given that Argentina consumes fashion against season, unsold stocks in the northern hemisphere are exported to the South American country at a low cost that undermines the competitiveness of the local product. According to Marco Meloni, secretary of the Fundacion Pro-Tejer, in the second semester of 2009 when the rise in LNA applications began to have an effect, imports dropped and local producers increasingly began to fill the gap with locally manufactured apparel.

Sixty percent of manufacturers anticipate a six to 13 percent increase in sales this year, says the 2010 qualitative survey done in 100 Argentinean companies by Pro-Tejer. Meloni expects greater activity in the industry although it will not be large nor immediate.

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