TEXTILE INDUSTRY LOSES FOREIGN ORDERS

MBABANE – Edcon Holdings LTD’s financial challenges mean some of the local textile industries might not be able to resume business despite being allowed to operate during the eased lockdown.

The Edcon group announced, on April 29, that its board had passed a resolution authorising it to file for business rescue in the course of the next few days.

It stated that following the coronavirus outbreak in South Africa, and the president’s first announcement on March 15, Edcon said it had lost E2 billion sales.

“The sales miss, and the decline in collections of the debtor’s book has meant that Edcon is unable to pay its suppliers for both the March and April month-ends,” it said.

Targetting

With that said, Fashion International Managing Director Vick Royce said they did not have any United States markets but were targeting South African markets.

Fashion International is one of the leading textile suppliers in the country, Royce said at this stage, they had lost, in business, in the region of 150 000 units that had been cancelled by their customers including Edgars and Jet.

He said despite that the Edcon Holdings group had cancelled its orders; they would still resume operations on Monday and their biggest customer at the moment was Woolworths, whom they would be supplying. He was not specific on the order required by Woolworths but stated that they were in communication with their customers to ascertain what they needed.

“South Africa sort of relaxed their trade regulations and at this moment we are still contacting our customers to establish what they want and in what quantity but I can say that with Edgars and Jet, there are no orders, all were cancelled,” he said.

Other textile companies did not want to comment on the prime minister’s statement and that includes human resource manager at Tex Ray Factory, another local renowned supplier of textile. Jackie Xu declined to comment when quizzed on what their international orders were and what their immediate resumption strategy was.

The Amalgamated Trade Union of Swaziland (ATUSWA), a workers union for textile employees, said it was still engaging the textile industry in forging an immediate working strategy as some of the companies wouldbe resuming operations on Monday. The union’s Secretary General Wonder Mkhonza said all local textile companies were not selling within the country but to South Africa and abroad.

He said in all likelihood, companies that will resume operations will be at work on Monday. He said companies would have to separate their workers into shifts and it would depend on the magnitude of their orders, and how swift they have to deliver the orders.

“If anything, they would have to go and seek permits to have night shifts from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade, but for them to adhere correctly to the WHO guidelines in maintaining the social distance; they would have to make shifts.

That will entail having one group working 50 per cent of their normal working hours and be substituted by another group to accommodate all the workers,” he said.  Mkhonza mentioned that it was still a suggestion to have the workers come in shifts and an ongoing discussion between the union and the textile companies.

Announcing the easing of the partial lockdown and the partial opening of the economy on Wednesday, Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini said extra businesses were allowed to operate, including manufacturing and production companies that had international orders to fulfil.

However, they shall operate under strict World Health Organisation (WHO) and Ministry of Health guidelines.
Other companies that are allowed to resume operations are agents and consultants, furniture shops, dry cleaners, retail clothing, vehicle testing and deco shops.

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