This year is coming to an end filled with uncertainty but there are still rays of hope in terms of new fashion sourcing countries to watch in 2024.

Fashion sourcing executives preparing strategies for 2024 have a lot to navigate. There are wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe as well as geopolitical tensions between the US and China. There are growing concerns over climate change following 2023’s record-breaking temperatures and natural disasters in key fashion sourcing destinations, plus high inflation continuing to impact consumer spending.

Expert panellists at the International Apparel Federation and Sewn Products Equipment & Suppliers of the Americas (SPESA) World Fashion Convention believe there are still some emerging destinations that can tick off the requirements of flexibility and geopolitical stability while being able to offer transparency and potentially affordability.

Emerging fashion sourcing countries to watch in Central America in 2024

Jennifer Knight, who is deputy assistant secretary for textiles, consumer goods, materials industries, critical minerals and metals industry and analysis at the US Department of Commerce kicks things off by putting the northern triangle of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador into the ring. She states they have all established themselves as key players for the US apparel industry.

Alejandro Ceballos, vice president of Vestex, the apparel and textile association of Guatemala, agrees and shares Central America is growing with investments being made by Korean companies wishing to enter the region.

He explains Central America can bring yarn from the US as part of the yarn forward rule in the US’s Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR), which is ideal for transparency. Plus, he notes location-wise it’s the closest region to the US bar Mexico, which gives it the flexibility advantage.

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Karin De León from the Central American and Dominican Republic Council (CECATEC-RD) adds that in the next five years she can see a “very strong” fashion sourcing region in Central America.

Meanwhile, chairman of fashion manufacturer GK Global, Yusuf Amdani, cites in his keynote speech that Central America will remain his manufacturing destination of choice for a time to come. He explains he started his fashion manufacturing business in Honduras because it had passed a free zone law that allowed him to build without needing permission so it gave him an easy way to start his operation.

However, he emphasises that Central America has changed a lot since then and has better infrastructure and talent available.

Ceballos highlights that supply chains today can move very fast in Central America with Guatemala being able to “do things in seven days”.

His fashion sourcing summary of Central America is as follows: “If you want lower price targets you can use the fabric from Guatemala because it has lower costs in power and electricity and the lowest rates in terms of labour. El Salavdor is very good in sportswear and Honduras is getting big investments from big companies.”

Emerging fashion sourcing countries to watch in Africa in 2024

Apparel manufacturer DTRT Apparel Group, which stands for Do The Right Thing is committed to sustainable and ethical fashion manufacturing and sees great potential in the emerging fashion sourcing country of Ghana in West Africa. Co-founder and co-CEO Marc Hansult explains his company has been in Ghana for almost a decade and it was the first investor setting up a larger scale operation for export in the country.

He shares: “We built our operation from scratch and we did so with the belief that West Africa and Ghana would be attractive for future investments and today the region is getting a lot of interest.”

From a long-term perspective he believes investment is going to happen and DTRT Apparel is going to be part of it, adding: “Beyond us there’s a lot of interest. West Africa brings a very unique opportunity to build a vertical infrastructure and a circular ecosystem.”

He admits the region is still in the early stages of development but there’s a lot of optimism as Africa has the opportunity to capture some of the market share from China given its proximity to both Europe and the US.

He continues that speed to market doesn’t have to mean fast fashion: “We felt West Africa due to geographical advantages would have cost competitiveness without the typical perception of Africa having longer lead times. We decided Ghana was the best of both worlds in that sense.”

On the other side of the continent in East Africa, Jessica Rainey has a consulting company based in Nairobi, Kenya called Mercantilia Consulting that is focused on sourcing and product development.

She observes the US’s trade preference scheme in the region called the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) has enabled smaller brands to get the trickle down economic success of the larger ones.

She also believes there’s a strong argument for Made in Africa and she’s seeing success from it.

Plus, she shares: “We started promoting slow fashion and 80% of our product is handmade in Ethiopia. We overhauled our calendar over the past year and looked at how to structure that to make it work.”

She admits there are logistical challenges in Africa that China doesn’t have, plus Ethiopia being removed from AGOA has had a huge impact on manufacturing in the country: “The duty for our product rose from 8% to 16% – you’re not talking about 10 or 20 cents you’re talking about $15-$20 and you can’t pass that on to the factory.”

But Hanult points out that by 2040 20% of the world’s population will be in Africa so it does remain what he calls a “tremendous opportunity”. He’s adamant that beyond the third country fabric model it has the potential for vertical ecosystems with greener and lower impact technologies with DTRT Apparel investing in a synthetics-focused textile mill.

As SPESA president Michael McDonald concludes opportunity comes from weakness so “if there are any weaknesses in the current supply chain – that’s where the opportunity lies”.