News Tags

Related Keywords: allows government to earn from import revenues, business licence fees, commonly available in East Africa, domestic producers, employs thousands, lobbying East African governments to impose a higher levy on mitumba, Local producers, mitumba, promoting industrialisation of the region, second hand clothes and shoes

East Africa where second hand clothes and shoes known as mitumba are commonly available throughout not only allows governments to earn from import revenues and business licence fees but employs thousands in these countries. Mitumba also allows consumers to have access to variety.

One can buy a Calvin Klein dress for about $5, which is definitely better than that $30 Chinese dress which fades after the second wash, or a pair of Grenson shoes for less than $10, certainly better than those shoes imported from Asia that burn your feet.

Related Keywords: AGOA, anti-dumping measures, cotton farming, cotton sector, EPZ textile companies, Kenyan textile industry, labour intensive value chain, liberalisation policies, mitumba, Rivatex, second hand clothes, WTO

Kenyan textile industry was flourishing in the 1980s before the influx of ‘mitumba’ into the country. Companies such as Rivatex offered jobs and clothed Kenyans in new clothes while Cotton farming in Nyanza and Western gave farmers a livelihood and provided cotton for the sector. This labour intensive value chain employed many Kenyans and significantly contributed to the fiscal revenue through taxes payable by the companies. Liberalisation policies followed a short while later and killed the sector.