Page 4 - 04 Cotton SA October 2014

Nuus - News

IN MEMORIUM: MARTIE BOTHA
The Southern African Sustainable

Cotton Textile and Apparel Cluster

In the last Cotton SA newsletter, I promised to provide our readers with more detailed information
about the Cluster Objectives and its Competitiveness Improvement Interventions.

CLUSTER OBJECTIVES the future development of the industry and Government in this regard;
The main aim of this Cluster initiative is to address mutual issues of national concern; • To centralise the intelligence output of
build and improve the capacity in the South • Achieve “Global Best Practice” status various existing clusters and industry
African textile and apparel industry value through benchmarking the Cluster’s organisations and to create a central point of
chain to effectively supply: deliverables and performance on various capturing and dissemination of aggregated
• Local and international consumers with international benchmarking platforms. industry intelligence and research.
fully traceable sustainable apparel and
household textile products; Quantitative Key Performance Indicators Compliance Centre
• Local Government with fully traceable The Key Performance Indicators, measures, The Compliance Centre will aim to assist
sustainable textile and apparel products baseline and targeted Cluster performance Government and other regulatory bodies in
that adheres to the 100% local content are set out by KPI in the table on the next page. their compliance duties with regard to the
designation as stipulated by the PPPFA greater textile sector. Its initial focus will be
Regulation; on import data collection, analysis, valuations
• And to facilitate the development of sector COMPETITIVENESS IMPROVEMENT and valuation methodology in support of the
and/or supply chain specific Sub-National INTERVENTIONS current reference pricing initiative of SARS
Clusters. The purpose of a National Cluster is to create Customs. The centre will further look to:
• In support of its main aim above, the Cluster an enabling environment for the industry • Upscale the level of interaction with
have specific objectives to: value chain to achieve its competitiveness Customs officials at the ports of entry and to
improvement objectives. This is done through
• Conduct research and technology establishing “Shared National Resources” facilitate training and reward programmes;
demonstration to support the development through interventions such as Business Process • Assist the National Consumer Council with
of shared national resources; Development, Technology Demonstration, the policing of current policies with regard
• Establish and manage shared national Research and Benchmarking. During its first to product labelling;
resources to provide an enabling year of operations, the Cluster will implement • Benchmark and propose alternative
environment for cluster members and other a wide range of interventions to achieve its statutory dispensation and support
sub-national clusters; objectives. These will amongst others include: mechanisms in support of the overall
• Incubate opportunities for sustainable capacity development and competitiveness
SMME participation and employment Shared National Resources improvement objectives of the Cluster.
creation – from farm to retail; Strategy and Intelligence Centre
• Maximizing the production capacity Finance Centre
development and beneficiation of local As part of the competiveness assessment The development of integrated supply chain
raw materials – starting with cotton and process the Task Team engaged with existing programs has unique finance requirements
then broadening its scope to include other clusters and industry organizations who ranging from production finance for farmers
natural fibres; expressed the need for a centralised national and commodity finance, to supply chain trade
strategy platform and intelligence services
• Establish a National Sector Body that capability for the textile and apparel industry. finance and enterprise incubation funding.
represents the entire industry value chain This intervention will aim to create: The aim of the Finance Centre is:
from fibre to end use product – bringing • Assessing the financing needs of both the
together like-minded sector leaders that • An industry platform for like-minded Cluster itself and the individual projects
work closely with Government to map out stakeholders to discuss and formulate emerging from its work with the industry;
issues of strategic concern and engage with

Katoen SA Cotton 4 September 2014