Enhancing Collective Export Competitiveness on Textiles and Clothing: A Study of Select South Asian Countries

The Background Textiles and clothing played a crucial role in the early stages of industrialisation in Britain, parts of North America, Japan and more recently in the export-oriented growth of East Asian economies (Yang & Zhong 1998). Japan in the 1950s and 1960s, the East Asian newly industrialising economies (NIEs) in the 1970s and 1980s and China in the 1990s became world-class exporters, primarily by mastering the dynamics of buyer-driven value chains (Gereffi, 2003). Seemingly, following the ‘flying geese’1 pattern, South Asian Economies (namely, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) have also emerged as significant textile and clothing exporters. The textile and clothing industry has become a suitable choice on the road to industrialisation for developing countries, in general, and LDCs, in particular, because of its high labour intensity, low capital needs and relatively easy-tocopy technology.