Following the phasing out of the Agreement on Textiles
and Clothing, the textile industry and, thus cotton consumption, is shifting to
Asia. Building on its longstanding work with Asian textiles and clothing
producers, ITC is facilitating cooperation among developing countries, with a
special focus on links between Africa and Asia. This involves five main themes.
Learning from
success. Training programmes organized by ITC allow successful cotton
producers in countries such as China, Turkey and India to share their knowledge
with cotton professionals from Western, Central, Eastern and Southern Africa.
This includes the transfer of cotton growing and processing technologies, such
as good agricultural practices and development of high yielding and resistant
cottonseed varieties.
Developing capacity
to transform cotton. Through ITC training, successful textile and clothing
producers are relaying their experiences to African countries. So far training
events have taken place in China, India, Turkey, Korea and Bangladesh, with
plans to expand such cooperation to Indonesia, Thailand and possibly Pakistan.
Promoting African
cotton. ITC also links up African producers with potential customers
through promotional activities in Asia. These aim to give African producers a
better understanding of Asian markets, including the need to assure importing
countries of the reliability and quality of supply.
Sourcing from other
developing countries. Encouraging African producers to search out suppliers
in the developing world promotes savings on items ranging from seeds and
fertilizer to textile technology. ITC currently is incorporating such work into
its programme.
Encouraging intra-African
cooperation. Better knowledge of the cotton and textile sectors in other
African countries is essential to regional strategies, yet is often lacking.
ITC views such cooperation as a first step toward joint activities that could
eventually differentiate African cotton and textiles on world markets.
The ITC African Cotton Development Initiative is
partially funded by the European Union as part of the ACP (African Caribbean
Pacific) Agricultural Commodities Programme.