California Apparel News

With 40 percent of the nation’s cargo-container traffic arriving at Los Angeles–area ports, trade has become a very important economic engine for the area.

That fact was not lost on U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman, who visited the Port of Long Beach on Nov. 24 on a swing through Los Angeles to promote the recently agreed-upon Trans-Pacific Partnership, a free-trade accord between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries. It still must be approved by Congress.

“California exports support hundreds of thousands of high-paying jobs and tens of thousands of businesses across the state,” Froman said. “The Trans-Pacific Partnership is aimed at growing those benefits by cutting taxes on made-in-California exports and leveling the playing field for California workers and businesses by raising standards in one of the fastest-growing regions of the world.

“TPP includes unprecedented labor and environmental protections, helps small businesses export, keeps the Internet free and open, and safeguards American innovation with intellectual-property protections.”

California exports about $173.8 billion a year, which supports 750,320 jobs in the state, Froman said, and $75.5 billion of that amount comes through the Los Angeles/Long Beach port complex. In the Los Angeles area about 35,000 businesses export and 96 percent of them are small and medium-size enterprises.

Details of the Trans-Pacific Partnership were published earlier this month and are being analyzed by various industries, including the apparel and textile industry. The yarn-forward pact means more fabric may be produced in places such as Vietnam, which is a TPP signatory. While there is a significant amount of garments sewn in that Southeast Asian country, not that much fabric is produced there. But that is starting to change as more Chinese and South Koreans look to open textile factories in that country. Other TPP signatories are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru and Singapore.

After touring the port, Froman visited WET Design, a Los Angeles company that creates huge fountains for cities and major architectural projects. It was founded by former Disney Imagineer employees whose new company designed the Bellagio fountains in Las Vegas and the Dubai fountain.

About 80 percent to 90 percent of the company’s revenue is from international sales. WET supports the TPP because it will give the country access to important countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially Japan, while protecting its intellectual-property rights.

“Exporting our unique water features all over the world has been a tremendous source of growth for our company and a major factor driving our employment—which currently stands at over 300 people,” said WET Chief Executive Mark Fuller. “We strongly support the Trans-Pacific Partnership because it will give WET and other small businesses like ours unprecedented access to vital economies in the Asia-Pacific region by reducing the import taxes that burden our work when facing foreign competition.”