Robert Begg

Upgrading, changing competitive pressures, and diverse practices in the East and Central European apparel industry

After a period in the 1990s of rapid integration into the production and trade networks of the European Union (EU) (and to a lesser extent of the United States), clothing manufacturers in East and Central Europe have had to adjust quickly to the changing costs of production with EU accession, the rise of Chinese exports, and the 1 January 2005 final phaseout of quantitative quotas into major markets. In this paper we focus on the changing competitive pressures on clothing producers in the region and on the diversity of adjustments currently being made in response to these changes. In particular, we detail the wide range of adjustment strategies being adopted by firms in Slovakia and Bulgaria, and show how interregional price competition, downgrading, and geographical shifts in patterns of sourcing and production are articulated with imperatives to regionalized production for major markets, stabilization of supply networks, industrial upgrading, and the expansion of localized sourcing and domestic-marketing strategies.

Outward Processing, EU Enlargement and Regional Relocation in the European Textiles and Clothing Industry: Reflections on the European Commission’s Communication on ‘the Future of the Textiles and Clothing Sector in the Enlarged European Union’:

The European clothing industry faces a number of important challenges which have been at the forefront of policy thinking across the European Union and beyond. This paper provides a set of reflections on the European Commission’s recent Communication on the future of the industry in Europe in the light of pressures of liberalization, globalization and EU enlargement. Based upon ongoing research on the restructuring of the Central and East European clothing sector, the paper highlights the limits of the outward-processing model of production that has dominated east-west interactions in this sector. It also examines the uneven role of upgrading and emerging design capacity in the industry, the role and limits of clothing-industry clusters in the new member states, and considers the role of ‘countermarkets’ in the pan-European clothing-contracting system.

Social and Spatial Context in Rural Development Strategies

The urban functions approach and the location-allocation technique may be viewed as similar strategies for locating urban functions in developing rural areas. Both strategies accept and reinforce the patterns of demand and distribution spatially manifest in the existing central place structures of developing rural areas. Because of this there are definable socio-spatial conditions under which either technique is disadvantaged. This article attempts to identify theoretically particular cultural contexts in which advocates of either strategy should be wary.