Rwanda’s “New Era” reported on August 24 that in recent years, the export volume of Rwanda’s textile and clothing products has increased to a certain extent, but local sales are still not optimistic, mainly due to production High pricing resulting from excessive costs.
The high cost of clothing manufacturing industry is mainly due to the following reasons. First, most clothing fabrics need to be imported. Rwanda imports different fabrics from East African Community member states, and from South Africa, South Korea, Indonesia and other places import artificial fabrics, which increases the cost of raw materials. Second, factors such as limited infrastructure and rising labor costs may lead to increased manufacturing expenses, which will also be reflected in the final product price. Third, compared with countries with larger populations and developed industries, Rwanda’s domestic market is relatively small, and limited demand may lead to reduced economies of scale and lower output, resulting in higher unit costs. Fourth, in order for products made in Rwanda to compete in the global market, they must meet international quality standards, which requires additional investment in equipment, testing facilities and quality control measures, which will lead to higher production costs.
In addition to pricing, another important reason why locals rarely buy locally made clothes is that they prefer to buy imported clothes packaged in plastic. Rwanda has banned the use of plastic packaging for clothing, and clothing distributed in boxes can easily become dirty and wrinkled, causing the value of Rwandan-made products to decrease.
