Competitiveness analysis of the Rwanda textile industry

The National Industrial Research Development Agency (NIRDA) engaged a local consultant to gather data on the garments value chain with a view to analysing its competitiveness in an international perspective, and developing recommendations to support productivity upgrading. This project will make use of the data collected to design a framework for analysing and tracking value chain performance over time, with the aim of enabling government agencies to design interventions that support productivity upgrading and structural change.

A second component will use international data, including data for Rwanda, to estimate a Ricardian model of trade over the 2000 to 2015 period. A key output of the model will be a series of estimates of Rwanda's revealed productivity in the clothing sector relative to other sectors. This output will enable international comparisons to be made and will provide an idea of the extent to which the industry is currently globally competitive.

The project outputs would include:

• estimates of Rwanda's revealed productivity in clothing over the period 2000 to 2015;
• a framework of analysis for using the consultant's dataset to understand value chain dynamics, and to diagnose issues that require government intervention; and
• a report analysing the performance of Rwanda's clothing value chain, and identifying perspectives for international competitiveness and structural change.

These outputs aim to be used by government, both in terms of their direct implications for the clothing value chain and also as an analytical framework that can then be applied by local consultants to other sectors of interest, such as leather and banana wine. As a follow up, there would be the perspective to use the materials developed, along with external sources, as the basis for a capacity building workshop to train local consultants and researchers in value chain analysis, so that Rwanda could be self-sufficient in this kind of analysis in the short term.