IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/devpol/v36y2018is1po247-o269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Repositioning in the global apparel value chain in the post†MFA era: Strategic issues and evidence from Sri Lanka

Author

Listed:
  • Prema†chandra Athukorala
  • Raveen Ekanayake

Abstract

This article examines structural adjustment in the world apparel trade following the abolition of Multi†Fibre Arrangement (MFA) quotas through a case study of the apparel industry in Sri Lanka. The evidence suggests that, in a quota†free global market, individual exporting countries have room for carving out a niche in specific products. The Sri Lankan apparel industry has managed to maintain growth dynamism through specialization in intimate apparel and upmarket casualwear. The expansion of the industry and its adjustment to MFA abolition was aided by an easily trainable domestic workforce and collaborative actions of industry associations and the government, with foreign buyers playing a pivotal role in linking the Sri Lankan firms to the global value chain.

Suggested Citation

  • Prema†chandra Athukorala & Raveen Ekanayake, 2018. "Repositioning in the global apparel value chain in the post†MFA era: Strategic issues and evidence from Sri Lanka," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 36(S1), pages 247-269, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:36:y:2018:i:s1:p:o247-o269
    DOI: 10.1111/dpr.12226
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12226
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/dpr.12226?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. World Bank, 2004. "Sri Lanka : Development Policy Review," World Bank Publications - Reports 14577, The World Bank Group.
    2. Ashani Abayasekara, 2013. "GSP+ Removal and the Apparel Industry in Sri Lanka," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 14(2), pages 293-316, September.
    3. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2012. "Sri Lanka’s Trade Policy: Reverting to Dirigisme?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(12), pages 1662-1686, December.
    4. Palpacuer, Florence & Gibbon, Peter & Thomsen, Lotte, 2005. "New Challenges for Developing Country Suppliers in Global Clothing Chains: A Comparative European Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 409-430, March.
    5. Fernando, Mario & Almeida, Shamika, 2012. "The organizational virtuousness of strategic corporate social responsibility: A case study of the Sri Lankan family-owned enterprise MAS Holdings," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 564-576.
    6. Cornelia Staritz, 2011. "Making the Cut? Low-Income Countries and the Global Clothing Value Chain in a Post-Quota and Post-Crisis World," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 2547.
    7. Nebahat Tokatli & Omür Kizilgün, 2010. "Coping with the changing rules of the game in the global textiles and apparel industries: evidence from Turkey and Morocco," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 209-229, March.
    8. James Harrigan & Geoffrey Barrows, 2009. "Testing the Theory of Trade Policy: Evidence from the Abrupt End of the Multifiber Arrangement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(2), pages 282-294, May.
    9. Kanchana N. Ruwanpura & Neil Wrigley, 2011. "The costs of compliance? Views of Sri Lankan apparel manufacturers in times of global economic crisis," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(6), pages 1031-1049, November.
    10. Meenu Tewari, 2008. "Deepening Intraregional Trade and Investment in South Asia: The Case of the Textiles and Clothing Industry," Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi Working Papers 213, Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations, New Delhi, India.
    11. Athukorala, Prema-chandra & Rajapatirana, Sarath, 2000. "Liberalization and Industrial Transformation: Lessons from the Sri Lankan Experience," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 48(3), pages 543-572, April.
    12. Carolyn L. Evans & James Harrigan, 2005. "Distance, Time, and Specialization: Lean Retailing in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 292-313, March.
    13. Prema-chandra Athukorala & Raveen Ekanayake, 2014. "Repositioning in the Global Apparel Value Chain in the Post-MFA Era: Strategic Issues and Evidence from Sri Lanka," Departmental Working Papers 2014-17, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    14. Kenneth M. Amaeshi & Onyeka K. Osuji & Paul Nnodim, 2008. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Supply Chains of Global Brands: A Boundaryless Responsibility? Clarifications, Exceptions and Implications," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 81(1), pages 223-234, August.
    15. Donald B. Keesing & Martin Wolf, 1981. "Questions on International Trade in Textiles and Clothing," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(1), pages 79-102, March.
    16. Denis Audet, 2007. "Smooth as Silk? A First Look at the Post MFA Textiles and Clothing Landscape," Journal of International Economic Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 10(2), pages 267-284, June.
    17. Meenu Tewari, 2008. "Deepening Intraregional Trade and Investment in South Asia - The Case of the Textiles and Clothing Industry," Trade Working Papers 22265, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    18. Kelegama, Saman & Foley, Fritz, 1999. "Impediments to Promoting Backward Linkages from the Garment Industry in Sri Lanka," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 27(8), pages 1445-1460, August.
    19. Savchenko, Yevgeniya & Acevedo, Gladys Lopez, 2012. "Female wages in the apparel industry post-MFA : the cases of Cambodia and Sri Lanka," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6061, The World Bank.
    20. Nordås, Hildegunn Kyvik, 2003. "The impact of trade liberalization on women's job opportunities and earnings in developing countries," World Trade Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(2), pages 221-231, July.
    21. Gereffi, Gary, 1999. "International trade and industrial upgrading in the apparel commodity chain," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 37-70, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fontana, Enrico & Öberg, Christina & Poblete, León, 2021. "Nominated procurement and the indirect control of nominated sub-suppliers: Evidence from the Sri Lankan apparel supply chain," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 179-192.
    2. Anup Kumar Bhandari, 2021. "Withdrawal of the multifibre agreement and Indian textile industry: Concerns, efforts, and achievements," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 1397-1436, August.
    3. Thorey S Thorisdottir & Lara Johannsdottir, 2020. "Corporate Social Responsibility Influencing Sustainability within the Fashion Industry. A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-64, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Prema-chandra Athukorala & Raveen Ekanayake, 2014. "Repositioning in the Global Apparel Value Chain in the Post-MFA Era: Strategic Issues and Evidence from Sri Lanka," Departmental Working Papers 2014-17, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    2. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2017. "Manufacturing exports from Sri Lanka: opportunities, achievements and policy options," Departmental Working Papers 2017-03, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    3. Jabbar Ul-Haq & Hubert Visas & Seyedrohollah Ahmadi & Ahmed Raza Cheema, 2020. "Female Earnings in the Apparel Industry Post-MFA: Evidence From Pakistan," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    4. Savchenko, Yevgeniya & Acevedo, Gladys Lopez, 2012. "Female wages in the apparel industry post-MFA : the cases of Cambodia and Sri Lanka," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6061, The World Bank.
    5. Annelies Goger, 2013. "From Disposable to Empowered: Rearticulating Labor in Sri Lankan Apparel Factories," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 45(11), pages 2628-2645, November.
    6. Staritz, Cornelia & Morris, Mike, 2013. "Local embeddedness and economic and social upgrading in Madagascar's export apparel industry," Working Papers 38, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    7. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2014. "Intra-regional FDI and Economic Integration in South Asia," South Asia Economic Journal, Institute of Policy Studies of Sri Lanka, vol. 15(1), pages 1-35, March.
    8. Patsy Perry & Steve Wood & John Fernie, 2015. "Corporate Social Responsibility in Garment Sourcing Networks: Factory Management Perspectives on Ethical Trade in Sri Lanka," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(3), pages 737-752, September.
    9. Staritz, Cornelia & Morris, Mike, 2012. "Local embeddedness, upgrading, and skill development: Global value chains and foreign direct investment in Lesotho's apparel industry," Working Papers 32, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    10. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2006. "Outward-oriented Policy Reforms and Industrialisation," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 1(1), pages 19-49, April.
    11. Morris, Mike & Staritz, Cornelia, 2014. "Industrialization Trajectories in Madagascar’s Export Apparel Industry: Ownership, Embeddedness, Markets, and Upgrading," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 243-257.
    12. Lindsay Whitfield & Cornelia Staritz, 2021. "Local supplier firms in Madagascar’s apparel export industry: Upgrading paths, transnational social relations and regional production networks," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(4), pages 763-784, June.
    13. Hamilton-Hart, Natasha & Stringer, Christina, 2016. "Upgrading and exploitation in the fishing industry: Contributions of value chain analysis," Marine Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 166-171.
    14. Prema-chandra Athukorala, 2013. "Intra-Regional FDI and Economic Integration in South Asia: Trends, Patterns and Prospects," Departmental Working Papers 2013-05, The Australian National University, Arndt-Corden Department of Economics.
    15. repec:ipg:wpaper:2014-496 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Plank, Leonhard & Rossi, Arianna & Staritz, Cornelia, 2012. "Workers and social upgrading in "fast fashion": The case of the apparel industry in Morocco and Romania," Working Papers 33, Austrian Foundation for Development Research (ÖFSE).
    17. Liyanaarachchi, Tilak Susantha & Bandara, Layatilleke S. & Naranpanawa, Athula, 2014. "A Quantitive Evaluation of the Potential Effects of Trade Policy Reversal in Sri Lanka: A Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) Analysis," Sri Lankan Journal of Agricultural Economics, Sri Lanka Agricultural Economics Association (SAEA), vol. 16, pages 1-26, November.
    18. Sungsup Ra & Brian Chin & Amy Liu, 2017. "Challenges and Opportunities for Skills Development in Asia: Changing Supply, Demand, and Mismatches," Working Papers id:11838, eSocialSciences.
    19. Hugues Poissonnier, 2009. "Enjeux et dynamique d'évolution des critères de performance en contexte inter-organisationnel : les enseignements de l'industrie textile française," Grenoble Ecole de Management (Post-Print) halshs-00459216, HAL.
    20. Venkatesh, V.G. & Zhang, Abraham & Deakins, Eric & Mani, Venkatesh, 2021. "Antecedents of social sustainability noncompliance in the Indian apparel sector," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    21. Mike Morris & Leonhard Plank & Cornelia Staritz, 2016. "Regionalism, end markets and ownership matter: Shifting dynamics in the apparel export industry in Sub Saharan Africa," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(7), pages 1244-1265, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:devpol:v:36:y:2018:i:s1:p:o247-o269. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/odioruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.