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The COSATU-affiliated Southern African Clothing & Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU), welcomes the latest BRICS Summit Declaration as adopted by Heads of State earlier this week, during the Brics Summit held in Brazil.

Specifically, we are excited and deeply appreciative about the Summit Declaration’s commitment to combat under-invoicing of imported goods.  This is undoubtedly one of the most significant developments over the last  decade, to normalise fair trade for our industry and to stamp out illegal imports.

It is a significant concrete step in the implementation of the commitments that government had made in the Retail-Clothing, Textile, Footwear and Leather (R-CTFL) Masterplan which we, our industry’s business- and government social partners had recently signed on 6 November 2019, at the 2nd Presidential Investor Conference held at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg.

Under-invoicing of imported goods is a major source of job losses in the clothing, textile, footwear, leather and poultry  industries in South Africa, and has a very serious negative impact on our country’s domestic industrialisation efforts.

We thank the South African government for having raised this matter during the Brics Summit.

Issued by SACTWU