Tunis - Tunisia's textile industry, a leading force in the country's economy in recent years, could plunge into recession with the dismantling next year of the multi-fibre agreement, which limits the access of Asian goods to the European market.
Local manufacturers, who sell 80 percent of their production to Europe, fear that the removal of tariff barriers will expose them to fearsome competition from cheap Asian goods, particularly goods made in China.
Tunisia is ranked fourth among textile exporters to the EU and until 2002 was the leading supplier to France, according to a recent report by the Tunisian Central Bank.
This position is now under threat and Tunisia's textile chiefs have been meeting in recent months to seek ways of safeguarding an industry that is of vital importance to the national economy, accounting for half of exports and providing 210 000 jobs in more than 2 000 companies.
Swiss consultancy Gherzi concluded in a report that Tunisia enjoyed no comparative advantages relative to leading Asian rivals such as China, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Turkey.
The domestic market was insufficient to sustain the sector on its own because 45 percent of Tunisia's population bought clothes
second-hand, Gherzi said.
A Tunisian expert said that for three decades the local textile industry, which is fragmented and largely operates on a subcontractor basis, had been "little more than a collection of takers of orders, or even just stickers-on of labels".
Modernisation strategies of the past 10 years, partly financed by the EU, have failed to stem a mounting sense of structural exhaustion.
After growing at a rate of more than 10 percent a year between 1997 and 2001, the sector saw growth of barely 1 percent per year between 2001 and 2003.
Foreign sales of cotton goods fell by 13.7 percent in 2003 and now account for only 1.6 percent of total exports.
The textile employers' association, Fenatex, has called for measures to boost the industry, notably lower social charges and more flexible hours.
It also wants unfair trading practices, such as the production of counterfeit goods and the operation of a parallel market, to be eliminated. It suggests industry consolidation and the creation of export consortiums that would share risk.
Hopes are also being invested in the creation with Turkey of a free trade zone that would permit the export to Europe of clothes made in Tunisia from Turkish materials.