Company C is based in Lautoka, on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu. Towards the end of the 1990s, Lautoka and nearby Nadi were very significant in terms of foreign-owned factories, but a number of these closed hurriedly during and after the political turmoil of 2000. Company C is going through difficult times. At its peak it employed 275 workers and manufactured for Rip Curl and Hot Tuna. Factory income averaged between $F30,000 and $40,000 a week. Some of these contracts continue, but most have been lost to factories in China. In particular, an earlier relationship with Rip Curl has been lost. Two of its factories closed in 2000, and today it occupies a second-storey location employing 30–40 workers for four or five days a week, depending on demand.

Finding new contacts is increasingly difficult. To offset this, the factory has opened its own outlet shops, to help tap into the local (tourist) market. The owner is currently putting faith in PICTA offering alternative markets and has already established markets for ‘Hawaiian’ or ‘Bula’ shirts in Tahiti (2,000-3,000 shirts a month) and the Cook Islands. The most consistent and high-value market is in surfwear. The company sees its comparative advantage remaining in terms of quick turnover (two weeks for most orders) and proximity for Australian and New Zealand buyers. As a small manufacturer, however, Company C feels that the cards are stacked against it in favour of the larger, mass-export factories to which policy and financial assistance are principally directed despite their low levels of value-adding. For example, ‘export tours’, which the Government had touted as helping create new markets, were seen as merely promoting ‘the big politically connected Suva operations’. The new credit scheme with Australia (which replaced the ICS) was seen as ‘worthless’ and government assistance was ‘nil’ for local companies.

Company A has always been a family-owned enterprise. In the 1970s it was a shop, involved mainly in cutting and outwork, and employed seven or eight workers. In 1983, it evolved into a manufacturing factory. By 1986, the company was exporting to the USA and Europe. From 1989 to 1993, when it was a TFF, it shifted its focus to New Zealand. With greater competition into the New Zealand market making sales difficult, it then focused on Australia. Finally, with the demise of the ICS in 2000, the Australian market also dried up. At its peak, the company consisted of two factories, one for export production and the other for the local market. The export-only factory recently closed and operations were consolidated into the one factory. This effectively finished their knitwear trade: ‘The coups were irrelevant compared with the loss of ICS.’ The company owners essentially followed opportunities as they arose and to a great extent trade agreements dictated their markets and strategic planning.

Today 75 per cent of its output goes to the local market and the remainder is exported. Of the export markets that remain most are other Pacific Island countries, while two connections remain in New Zealand and just one in Australia. The factory is now moving into sports clothing and the owners estimate that the local market is now more lucrative than exports, particularly in terms of price per garment. Carlton Breweries, Mobil, schools, government departments and resorts are established buyers. They have the occasional 500- or 1,000-garment order from Australia and still have four years remaining on their TFF status. At its peak, the company employed more than 215 workers, but in 2003 the figure was only about 100. The owners estimated that their focus on the local market had saved at least 50 jobs, especially those of experienced staff, as cut, make and trim operations ‘destroyed skilled people’.

In terms of Company A’s relationship with overseas purchasers, price is everything. They have never been asked about working conditions, wages or been affected by compliance issues. On the question ‘Do your buyers want value-added, more expensive garments, or cheaper ones?’, the response was ‘They want it all!’ ‘They basically quote the price in China to us, but we can’t make that price. They want good stuff, for as cheap as possible.’

Company B originated from a tailoring business but in 1992 this long-time clothing store in central Suva was closed in favour of a tax-free-status company being formed with six employees. Though operations are controlled by an Indo-Fijian family, the company is 100 per cent Australian owned. High-quality materials are imported from the USA, Korea, and Taiwan and made into niche export products destined primarily for New Zealand and Australia. The factory has manufactured products for the Australian police and Australian Army and its labels include Mount, Traverse, Astral and Sienna and other outdoor brands. It manufactures Polar Tec and Gore-Tex products and is moving towards small quantities of value-added garments. The factory employs about 140 workers and typically has enough business to operate 40-hour weeks. Labour is seen as the company’s biggest expense and a key to profitability is to keep labour costs as close to the minimum wage as possible. However, to offset the loss of skilled staff, good workers are offered between 5 and 10 per cent more than the going rate. This is especially the case for skilled machinists. The future of the industry is seen as ‘poor’, especially in woven garments. The company has looked at relocating to China but does well enough through its own outlet shops in New Zealand and Australia, which are run from Fiji.

While engaging with the local and global market from very different starting points, these ‘local’ firms have struggled to find markets, are laying off staff and portray cut, make and trim operation days as numbered. Many of these operations have evolved from Indo-Fijian tailoring backgrounds and entered the export market through TFF status. They are now facing painful readjustments in trying to move towards more value-added markets — a move they feel is generally unsupported by trade policies. Some have gained success through selling locally and are emerging as exporters to other Pacific Island states. They see opportunities in PICTA, but are sceptical of ties to Australasia. By far, these factories are the greater number, and they span those that are experiencing modest growth to those who feel they are in terminal decline.

Company E is a large and well-established operation in Suva. It makes men’s work shirts, business shirts and up-market ladies’ wear. Some notable brands include King G and Yakka although most of its products are sold to wholesalers, which are also shareholders. Its biggest business at the moment is Australian demand for OH&S-compliant protective workwear. About 70–80 per cent of exports are bound for Australia, where the company also has its own distribution arm. This allows it some control over distribution. It also, through a partner, owns its own fabric mill, which avoids difficulties with raw material supply. The company currently employs 580 workers. Seventy per cent are women and 70 per cent are described as long-term employees, while a further 15 per cent have been with the factory for two to three years. The remainder are typically ‘transient young people straight from their villages’ who tend to move on regularly.

Company E strongly believes that to survive companies will have to find niche markets and add value to their products, but this will not be an easy transition and ‘plenty of factories will be lost along the way’. It was remarked that anyone competing with China, or ‘in their way … should just give up’. The comparative advantage that the Fijian garment industry retains after the expiry of the MFA is based on specialist and well-trained staff; short runs; the ability to adapt to specified styles; having English as the main language of communication; being close to Southern hemisphere markets; and having a fast turnaround time.

Consequently, Company E has invested significantly in technology. Even so, the industry was described as a ‘bums on seats’ one and labour costs were the key factor for profit margins and the reason for being in Fiji. It was argued that there was a ‘ceiling on wages’ and if you went over this you would be out of business: margins were described as ‘generally tight … we sell and operate on minutes’. The company claimed to adhere strictly to the minimum wage. Still, there was an appreciation that the industry, at the bottom of the wage scale, had a responsibility to its workers. Company E had claimed some effort in improving its workers’ lives apart from direct wage increases. Examples include the funding of a (sporadically open) nearby creche, health assessments for workers, an on-site health centre and a micro-finance and savings scheme, from which workers can draw money against their wages for emergencies. They feel that this policy has created a much better working environment, a more responsive workforce, and less potential for conflict with unions and buyers, which is ‘good for business, after all’.

Finally, there are those factories that have been integrated into the global economy in a quite different way. Many of these are Asian-owned and are exporting to the USA. The most spectacular (in terms of size) of these was Ghim Li. Ghim Li, which was Fiji’s major exporter to the USA under the MFA, shut down factories in Ba, Lautoka, Nadi and Suva in April and May 2005 with the loss of 3,000 jobs, devastating communities in Lautoka and Nadi (Pacific Magazine, April 25, 2005). There were eight Ghim Li factories located in the west of Viti Levu employing about 4,000 workers at its peak. Ghim Li, a Singaporean-Malaysian company, is a truly global operation with 13 factories in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, China, Guatemala and formerly in Fiji. It produced for Wal-Mart, Sears, Warner Brothers and K-Mart. Its Fiji operations produced mainly for Wal-Mart in the USA.

Ghim Li Fiji owed its existence to the fact that it could utilise Fijian quota access to the US market as a ‘quota-hopping’ operation under the MFA. Its production was based on a high quantity of cheap products, which set it apart from other Fijian manufacturers as a truly ‘globally competitive and focused’ operation. It also operated a number of outsourcing factories in Fiji. Ghim Li was always a controversial enterprise, with its high use of female labour recruited from China, a protracted strike in 2003 over labour conditions and wages, and accusations of ‘slavery’ in terms of migrant labour housing and of being ‘a sweatshop’ in terms of the way it operated.

While the company gave regular assurances that its Fijian operation was profitable, it existed largely at a break-even level in terms of fulfilling quotas as part of much larger orders. Ghim Li Fiji certainly expanded significantly throughout the 1990s, including the purchasing in 2000 of at least two factories from manufacturers who were closing their operations down. However, there were always concerns about the ultimate sustainability of what many insiders saw as an ‘opportunist’ operation. In a matter of months after the end of the MFA, the company closed all its Fijian operations, perhaps giving the greatest indication of the limitations (some would say folly) of pursuing ‘globally competitive’ (i.e., low-wage) industrial operations in the Pacific.