ABSTRACT
The textile sector has traditionally been an important vehicle for industrialisation and a major source of export earnings for developing countries, but it has always been limited by industrialised country protectionism. The Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) is among the most important non-tariff barriers facing developing countries today. Although it is administered under the auspices of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it has been defined as ‘one of the most comprehensive and discriminatory deformations of the international trading system’ [Herzan and Holmes, 1990:191].
