The textile and apparel industry in Lesotho in the wake of the multi-fibre agreement phase-out, IPRA Working Paper 97

This paper examines the textile and clothing (T&C) industry in Lesotho to ascertain the initial effects of theend of quotas and other restrictions on global trade in textile and clothing.Results show a dramatic decline in Lesotho’s T&C exports, both in value terms and export share in major markets in industrialised countries: the U.S. and the EU in the aftermath of the Agreement on Textile and Clothing (ATC). The export decline for Lesotho and for Sub-Saharan African countries as a group has not been accompanied by simultaneous or rapid shift of increasing T&C exports by Asian developing countries, who continue toexport post-ATC at about the samelevels of textile and clothing that they did before ATC phase out.