São Paulo – For many years, the country has been fertile ground for domestic and international brands to produce their jeans. And, due to its trade agreements, has become a starting point for sector exports. Now, Morocco, which is already active in the textile industry, mainly jeans, is also working with clothes producers in Brazil. In the wake of a depreciated dollar, from January to July this year, the Brazilian market acquired US$ 2.4 million in garments from the African nation, of which US$ 944,000 were trousers.
The figures are shy as against the huge volume of clothes Brazil imports and produces, but they have grown as against last year. In the six first months of 2010, Morocco’s garment export to Brazil totalled US$ 1.05 million. Trousers were responsible for US$ 436,000. The growth, on the whole, was 133%, and, in trousers alone, 116%. There are no figures as to what percentage of them are jeans, although that is one of the strongest sectors for industry in the Arab country. Furthermore, most of the trousers imported by Brazil from Morocco are cotton, the raw material out of which jeans are made.
The ambassador of Morocco to Brazilian capital Brasília, Mohamed Louafa, believes that sector trade and trade as a whole between the two countries may grow further with the signing of the trade agreement that is under negotiation with the Mercosur, the customs union that includes Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. And he points out that the volume of trade between the Moroccan and Brazilian markets is on the rise. This year, from January to June, for example, exports from Morocco to Brazil rose US$ 497 million, against US$ 245 million in the same months in 2010.
In the textile area, Brazilian industry itself is eyeing the potential of Morocco as a producer of jeans. The Arab country is among the targets of the Brazilian Fashion Industrial Export Program (TexBrasil) as it is a great producer of jeans. Brazil, in turn, stands out in the production of denim, material used in the production of garments. According to figures disclosed by the embassy of Morocco to Brasília, there are in Morocco over 1,000 textile industries, of which 100 are in the area of jeans. “Morocco has a large textile industry,” said Louafa.
The companies have both 100% Moroccan capital and mixed foreign capital. According to the ambassador, the country produces all kinds of jeans (from the most popular to the most sophisticated) and houses internationally renowned brands. Industry in the area, according to him, is ancient, dating back to the country’s independence, in 1956, and benefiting from the trade agreement that the country has with the European Union. This is so true that the textile industry operates mainly for exports. The main importers, according to Louafa, are the European and North American markets.
In the Arab country there are both jeans factories that produce and sell their own brands and those that supply international brands and chains. Among the companies that supply other brands is Bermaille, a family business headquartered in Casablanca that has been in operation since 1990. The company, that makes sports jeans and female and infant clothes, says on its site that it produces for European chains.
Papman is another company, a large one, from Rabat, that produces for retail chains. The capacity is 3,500 items a day and there are 300 employees. Aryan’s, from Casablanca, sells premium denim products under its own brand, and may produce up to 4,000 items a day. The company has been in operation for 20 years.
*Translated by Mark Ament
