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Factmore Dzobo Senior Reporter
IT’S a hot Saturday afternoon at a flea market popularly known as Khothama open air boutique. Despite the scorching heat, for many vendors, it is a hectic day as one can  hear a cacophony of voices touting for customers. “Hurry, hurry for special offers, $2 for two jean trousers and anyone with a dollar can get two quality shirts. My brother don’t leave this place without taking anything, your few dollars can buy quality clothes here.”

Flea markets have become the place of choice for many people buying clothes as they are now selling imported clothes at comparatively competitive prices, in the process beating traditional retail clothing outlets in the city.

“I can’t even recall when I last bought clothes from renowned clothing shops in the city. For me it is now cheaper to buy clothes for the family from the flea markets than to open a credit account with some clothing shops. After all the quality is more or less the same,” said Emelda Ndiraya, who was busy choosing clothes for her family at Khothama boutique recently.

The country’s textile and clothing industry is grappling with a lot of challenges, chief among them the influx of cheap fabrics imported from Asian markets and smuggled secondhand clothes.

Analysts said the subdued local demand of manufactured textile products and clothes was a result of cheap smuggled clothes flooding the Zimbabwean markets. These have resulted in the decline of demand for locally produced clothes, impacting negatively on the textile and clothing industry.

One of the country’s biggest lint-processor and textile manufacturer, David Whitehead Textiles is currently operating in phased production with a number of workers made redundant due to viability challenges among them the need for retooling of its ancient machinery to increase its productivity.

The textile and clothing industry at its peak used to employ over 40,000 workers but today the figure has since plunged to less than 10,000 due to a myriad of challenges bedeviling the sector.

Economist Davison Gomo said trade liberalisation which comes with the opening up of markets created an unfavourable competition.

“It appears that the opening up of markets worked unfavourably to a country reeling under economic sanctions like Zimbabwe. Trade liberalisation has opened to an influx of low-cost textiles and clothing products entering into the country, competing with the high-cost locally produced textile and clothing products.”

Gomo said the textile and clothing industry is currently facing an uphill task of fighting competition against a backdrop of the economic viability challenges affecting mainly the manufacturing industry in the country.

Zimbabwe Clothing Manufacturers’ Association (ZCMA) chairman Jeremy Youmans admitted that the clothing and textile industry was facing immense challenges, which have led to a decreased in the production and closure of some clothing and textile companies in the country.

He said the main challenge was to counter the cheap textile imports and the smuggling of secondhand clothes.

“The cheap textile products and second hand clothes flooding the flea markets have resulted to the decline in demand for locally produced textile and clothing products. The smuggling of second hand clothes and other textile products has compromised the price of the locally manufactured clothing and textile products. The smuggled products are being sold at cheaper prices than the locally produced products because they do not pay any duty,” said Youmans.

He said there is a need for the government to control the influx of second hand clothes and imports of textiles products from Asian Markets to promote the growth of the local industry.

“The government should stop the smuggling of second hand clothes and imports of cheap textiles products to promote local production and increase the demand of textile products,” he said.

A former worker at the now defunct Belmor Clothing industry in Belmont, Bulawayo, Emmanuel Velaphi said most of the clothing and textiles companies in the country have failed to keep abreast with technological advancement a situation which affected the quality and production costs of the locally produced textile products.

“We are still lagging behind when it comes to technology and this has compromised the quality and production costs of textile products. The machinery which is still used in the textile and clothing industry is now obsolete and outdated and there is need for recapitalisation to procure new technology which can produce quality products at a lower cost,” said Velaphi.

He said the use of obsolete equipment and machinery makes it difficult for local companies to produce products which can compete on the international market. Local exports of textile and clothing products have become uncompetitive on the global market, in the face of stiff competition from the Far East, where government subsidies help reduce costs, leading to companies offering very competitive prices.

Other economists have cited the collapse of the textile and clothing industry as emanating from price distortions and fluctuations of cotton production. Cotton ginners were accused of offering lower market price for cotton farmers, a move that saw many cotton growers quit the farming of the white gold for other cash crops.

Cotton farmers said if cotton continued to fetch unattractive prices on the market, the textile and clothing industry will forever battle for survival.

Recently, government came up with a cocktail of measures in the 2015 Budget Statement among them the reviving of the manufacturing sector activity weighed down by antiquated plant and machinery, cheap imports and high cost of production. The measures included reviewing of import tariffs for selected goods such as agricultural commodities; the clothing, textile and leather industry as well as mobilisation of lines of credits for domestic industry for recapitalisation and retooling. The measures  are expected to promote competitiveness of the domestic industry.