The Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) recently welcomed the signing of the retail, clothing, textile, footwear and leather (R-CTFL) masterplan, which aims to lay a firm basis for future growth and sustainability of the textile and apparel industry.
The masterplan was signed by major CTFL retailers, manufacturers, labour unions and the government at the 2nd Presidential Investment Conference in Sandton, Gauteng.
SACTWU is pleased with the commitments made by the government to help strengthen the inspections and compliance enforcement capacity of the South African Revenue Services (SARS) to stamp out illegal imports and under-invoicing, and by major retailers to procure more clothing, textile, footwear and leather goods locally (up to 65%).
It is also happy that CTFL manufacturers have committed to raise investment in modernising their production capacity.
The masterplan aims to create more than 70,000 new manufacturing jobs.