alt Hacker NewsYes, I know this practice is commonplace. What it does is "protect" a specific industry, but that results in less choice for consumers and higher prices.
Protectionism has value when applied to strategic industries, like chip making, that you cannot afford to have cut off.
Making local garments is not a strategic industry.
P.S. Every businessman believes in the free market for everyone except his own business, which the government should protect from competition. The same for unions.
this is not about protecting businesses. this is about providing jobs for locals. many african countries are struggling with that.
providing an income for everyone is important. keeping everyone satisfied is too. not to mention not loosing your cultural identity. and if the clothing industry is able to provide jobs by keeping cheap low quality products out of the country, why would that be bad? clothing is not the biggest expense people have, so making clothing a bit more expensive is not going to hurt that much.