Marina Gambiroza-Jukic, secretary of the Textile and Clothing Industry Association with the Croatian Chamber of the Economy, says some of the reasons for the decreased output and loss of jobs in the branch are the liberalisation of the market and the fall of general competitiveness.
According to Gambiroza-Jukic, Croatia has failed to gradually adapt to the decrease of customs duties and the import from China has only worsened the situation in the textile and clothing industry, which employed 82,000 people in the 1990s but employs only 31,700 today.
The increasing import of cheap goods from China since the abolition of the global quota system earlier this year affects the United States and other European countries as well.
Another example of strong imports from China is the fact that the use of Chinese gauze and cotton wool in medicine jumped from 9.8 per cent in 2002 to 24 per cent in 2004 to 63 per cent in the first six months of this year.
"Due to the drastic increase in import our factories have to let workers go and cut down production because in terms of prices they can't compete with Chinese products and price is the main condition for selecting the supplier," says Gambiroza-Jukic.
According to her, stocks, sales and employment in the branch have been falling over the last three years and are the reason for entering the long-lasting process of protecting domestic production. She says that only after the situation has been analysed can a request be made to the economy ministry to protect domestic production from excessive import. To date only meat manufacturers have done something like this due to excessive import from Brazil.
Gambiroza-Jakic says that only constant investing in technology enables survival on the market and competitiveness with prices in the European Union.
According to National Bureau of Statistics figures, the clothes Croatia imports from China the most are T-shirts, trousers, dresses, suits, sweaters, underwear, and bedclothes.
The import of T-shirts was US$8.12 million last year and $6.3 million in this year's first six months alone. The import of male shirts was $2.15 million last year and $1.4 million in this year's first six months, while the import of female shirts and blouses was $855,000 in 2004 and $765,000 in the first six months of 2005.
Croatian textile workers proposed the protection of domestic production on June 30 in line with the Decree on the Protection of Domestic Industry.