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The Changing Contextsof Chinese-Nigerian

Textile Production andTrade, 19002015

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Abstract

Since the mid-1990s, China

has become the leading

exporter worldwide of

manufactured textiles and

clothing. For Nigeria, one of

Chinas major trading partners

in Africa, increased imports

of Chinese textiles are related

to the decline of the Nigerian

textile manufacturing industry.

It also reects the opening up

of China to foreign investment

and the subsequent boom in

manufactured textile exports

and to changes in World Trade

Organization textile agreements.

This paper examines these

changes in textile manufacture

and trade, focusing rst on

twentieth-century Chinese and

Nigerian textile manufacturing

histories and their subsequent

divergence, beginning in the

1980s and continuing into the

early twenty-rst century. The

increase in Chinese-Nigerian

textile trade became physically

evident in Nigeria in the late

1990s, with Chinese textile

companies setting up ofces in

Lagos and Kano, and Nigerian

traders and businessmen

setting up ofces in Guangzhou,

China. The question of how

increased shipments of Chinese

manufactured textiles have been

organized by Chinese company

representatives, brokers, and

traders, as well as by Nigerian

traders and businessmen to

meet Nigerian consumer demand

is then addressed. Finally,

this growth in textile trade is

considered in the context of

Chinese-Nigerian plans for the

building of a Free Trade Zone

in Lagos, which would include

the construction of a new textile

mill. The paper concludes

by considering whether this

collaboration may lead to a revival

of the Nigerian textile industry.

ELISHA P. RENNEElisha P. Renne is a professor in the Department

of Anthropology and the Department of

Afroamerican and African Studies, University ofMichigan. Her writing on African textiles includes

the book, Cloth That Does Not Die (1995), and the

edited volumes, Yoruba Religious Textiles (2005)

and Veiling in Africa (2013).erenne@umich.edu

Textile, Volume 13, Issue 3, pp. 212233

DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2015.1054105Reprints available directly from the Publishers.

Photocopying permitted by licence only.

2016 Taylor & Francis

Printed in the United Kingdom

Keywords:textile manufacturing; Chinese-Nigerian textile trade; Kano;

Nigeria; Guangzhou; China; textile agreements; special economic zones

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mailto:erenne@umich.edumailto:erenne@umich.edumailto:erenne@umich.edu