AbstractsEconomics

Thesis (M.Phil)—Stellenbosch University, 2016. ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The challenges that led to the demise of the clothing and textile industry have mainly been attributed to the inability of local producers of clothing and textile items to compete with cheap imports from Asian countries, especially China. This has led to many firms closing down and much needed employment lost. Several interventions have been implemented to save the sector. However, this has failed, mainly due to their design, which instead of targeting areas that will improve the competitiveness they focused on imposing quotas to discourage imports. During 2009 the Department of Trade and Industry, together with the Industrial Development Corporation, developed the Clothing and Textile Competitive Programme, which is aimed at improving the competitiveness and stabilising employment within the sector. The study reviews the Clothing and Textile Competitive Programme through reviews of documents relating to 17 beneficiaries and management of the scheme in order to assess if the programme has been designed, implemented and is managed in a way that will enable realisation of intended objectives. The need to assess the design, implementation and management of the programme has been necessitated by the fact that several other interventions failed due to their design. The result of the study has indicated that, even though there are several areas that need to be addressed or reviewed, the programme design is in accordance with recommendations from reviewed literature and has been implemented as intended. Based on this, it can be expected that the programme will probably achieve its objective. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar Advisors/Committee Members: Thomas, Wolfgang H..