THE STAR INFOGRAPHIC
Public policy expert Anthony Mwangi, who is the former Kenya Association of Manufacturers CEO, says interestingly, Kenya is one of the global suppliers of big fashion brands in America.
In fact, Kenya is the largest exporter of garments under the African Growth and Opportunity Act programme, manufacturing for big names such as H&M, Levi’s, JC Penny, Wrangler and Otto, among others.
Kenya banned mitumba in the mid-1960s to protect the local industry, eased the ban in the mid-1980s to allow donations to refugees, and lifted it altogether in the early 1990s as world markets liberalised.
Some notable Kenyan textile factories, among them Kisumu Cot-ton Mills and Mount Kenya Textile Mills, went down due to financial difficulties and competition from cheap imported textiles and the removal of price controls.
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