A Fiji business delegation of senior trade officials and representatives of five garment manufacturers are visiting New Zealand this week in a bid to revive the island nation's clothing industry. Ms. Lailun Khan, Fiji Trade and Investment Bureau Chief Executive said “New Zealand at one stage was Fiji's biggest market for our textile, clothing and footwear exports and has now slipped to second position after Australia”. Mr. Savenaca Narube, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Fiji, late last year expressed concern over a widening trade deficit, and said that he expected the Fiji garment industry to decline a further 20 % during 2006. Fiji last year lost a $F130 mln ($NZ110m) annual garment quota in the United States and faces the prospect of losing market share in Australia as tariffs on Chinese garments imported into Australia are reduced. The bank
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| predicted the Fiji manufacturing sector would ‘shrink considerably’ as a result of the closure of factories that employed about 4000 people.
Ms Khan told that New Zealand's continued reduction in tariffs on imported clothing had implications for the competitiveness of Fiji's clothing products. She said that Fiji was close to New Zealand and had direct shipping and air links, so the mission wanted to promote it as a production base for small volume orders. “New Zealand is no longer a garment manufacturing country and has shifted its focus to fashion design. This mission provides an opportunity to our garment manufacturers to re-explore the prospects of increasing our textile, clothing and footwear exports by meeting wholesalers and fashion designers.” The delegation includes executives of United Apparel, Jacks Garments, Southtex Fiji Ltd, Natson's Ltd, Overalls and Raincoats Manufacturing Ltd. 
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