Has anybody noticed that a great majority of the clothing, linen and bath room products you buy at the major outlets (Edgars, Jet, Woolworths, Pick and Pay etc.) come from mainly China, India or Indonesia now days.
Where are the days when we bought proudly South African, and what was the major ruckus about when Walmart bought into the MassMart group, and one of the reasons was that we would be inundated with cheap items from elsewhere, which would have a negative effect on the local producers.
Meantime we are also buying the self same cheap products from street vendors, the local stores (with their mark ups, of up to 500% on the same items, maybe in a different box or package).
Some stores bring in the same knock off items such as rugby jerseys, cricket shirts etc, that get impounded by the police as being illegal if found with a street vendor, but the store owners have the items relabeled beforehand.
What is happening to the local clothing industry, maybe we are out pricing ourselves from the reality, or maybe the industry is to over regulated with all the laws and rules and trade union involvement or maybe it is the major outlets and their shareholders that have become to greedy?
Either way our country is not doing its self any favour by becoming a major importer instead of an exporter of finished goods. Obviously there is the subsequent loss of jobs that goes hand in hand with the problem.
The same goes for paper products the gift bags are now made in China, where before it was a South African product, look alike Smarties imported from South America are sold at R2-00 per packet - so the list can go on. We of late tend to give away our local unfinished minerals in exchange for a bunch of beads to the determent of all local manufacturers.
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