Garment supply chains in the South Pacific: analysis of the Fiji garment industry

Abstract

Globally, a lot has been written on the supply chains management on various industries. Although a lot has been written on garment supply chains (East Asia and Latin America), there is little publication on garment supply chains in small island countries. This paper attempts to fill this research lacuna by examining the garment supply chains in the South Pacific Region with empirical evidence from Fiji. This paper highlights that Fiji is involved three garment supply chains. The first is the Chinese TNCs controlled garment supply chains which export mainly to the USA garment market. Second, is the Australian and New Zealand controlled supply chains which export garments to the Australian and New Zealand markets. Third, is the Fiji owned and controlled supply chains which export garments to the Australian, New Zealand markets, the UK and EU markets. This paper has utilised Gereffi’s (1994a) ‘global supply chains’ (GCCs) theoretical perspective to unmask three types of garment supply chains.