ACTIF to hold two day expo called Origin Africa to woo investors

African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation (ACTIF) has planned to make Kenya where cotton is mainly grown by small scale farmers into a number one sourcing destination for textile and apparels for which they has announced a farm-to-fashion value chain campaign called Origin Africa a two day expo that will try to put up perception of Africa as a place to do business.

According to ACTIF, prospective investors are moving their eye off the Kenyan textile industry, as doing business involves high cost, as the cost of power and labor is drastically high, this is the major challenged faced by the textile sector. Due to this investors are trying to foray into neighbouring countries which offer lower cost and better business milieu.

Apart from high cost, political insecurity and huge gaps within intermediate sectors of the cotton value chain are other impediments to the sector’s progress, that is keep the prospective investors away from entering its own textile sector.

Moreover, the ginners and spinners make use obsolete technology and equipment further worsens the situation, players in the industry now want farmers in the continent to take on to value addition so as to increase farmers’ earnings, but also provide jobs for the 11 million unemployed youth in the country. The out dated machinery used in the textile sector needs to be taken over with better technology to enable them add value to compete propitious at the world market.

Kenyan products are of the required standards and quality to compete in the international market, all it needs is to get into international market to pursue investors.