City supports clothing sector to increase local manufacturing

The City of Cape Town, through its Enterprise and Investment Department, provides funding to the Cape Clothing and Textile Cluster (CCTC), a not-for-profit initiative established in 2005 to boost the competitiveness of the clothing, textile, footwear and leather (CTFL) manufacturing industry, for two main projects: the COVID-19 Recovery Support Programme and the Team Leader Skills Development Pilot Programme. Read more below:

The CCTC currently has 23 members which are primarily manufacturers who collectively employ more than 10 000 staff. Members also include major retailers who are committed to supporting the development of the local manufacturing industry. The overwhelming majority of these firms are based in Cape Town.

‘The City provides funding to Strategic Business Partners to address developmental challenges but also, to actively seek opportunities to grow our economy by attracting investment and create jobs,’ said Mayoral Committee Member for Economic Opportunities and Asset Management, Alderman James Vos.

The CCTC was provided with funding for this financial year for two specific projects. The first was for the CCTC’s COVID-19 Recovery Support Programme for the local CTFL manufacturing sector.

The COVID-19 Recovery Support Programme is aimed at guiding local CTFL firms through the process of building the necessary resilience to cope with the ongoing health and safety disruptions and recessionary operating conditions, and even to thrive within this environment.

The programme takes firms through the five key challenges associated with the current COVID-19 and recessionary context including understanding demand dynamics, finance considerations, operations and people risk (i.e. general health and safety during this time for staff and customers), and supply chain management risks.

‘The COVID-19 Recovery Support Programme plays an important role by enabling the cluster to minimise potential job losses and helping businesses in the sector to position themselves to identify and take advantage of localisation and other growth opportunities.

‘Through my many engagements and visits with companies to find ways to assist the industry, I have been very impressed with the resilience and innovation during these times,’ said Alderman Vos.

The second project focusses on upskilling young employees to take on management roles. To address the CTFL industry’s low youth participation, especially within leadership roles, the Team Leader Skills Development Pilot Programme was developed to quickly upskill young employees to full management roles and create a sustainable succession plan within their work force.

The CCTC will pilot an innovative online, gamified micro-learning management development programme suitable for CTFL team leaders and supervisors to use on their mobile phones, accessible either at the workplace or at home. This low cost remote-learning alternative to traditional skills development can be scaled up very quickly, cost-effectively and even be expanded to other industrial sectors.

‘Key to our recovery plans is working with key sectors to firstly retain jobs and then to identify the opportunities that every crisis holds. Through collaboration and by implementing proven strategies, we will recover and bounce back stronger than before,’ said Alderman Vos.