Zimbabwe’s manufacturing firms want government to consider banning the import of second hand clothes as part of reforms to protect the local industry, Parliament heard on Tuesday.
Used clothes have flooded the domestic market, compounding the woes of a local textile industry on the verge of collapse. Industry experts say Zimbabwe has a market for 80 million garments but only 20 million of those are locally manufactured. Almost 90 percent of imported new clothes are exempt from duty because of regional trade agreements, analysts noted.
