• Lesotho is known as the "jeans capital of Africa", producing 26 million pairs of denim jeans a year.

• The Formosa Mill in Maseru is a state-of-the art denim fabric mill producing more than 1.3 million yards of denim fabric a year, and 900 tons of cotton and cotton blend yarns.

• The industry makes 70 million knitted garments a year.

• The industry is the largest formal employer in the country and provides work for more than 40 000 mainly women workers.

• Workers in the industry earn US$60 million a year and this money circulates through the economy supporting a range of other small businesses.

• Lesotho is the largest Sub-Saharan African exporter of garments to the US. Thirty percent of Sub-Saharan garment exports by value, and twenty eight percent by volume for 2008 came from Lesotho.

• 7The corporate manufacturing tax rate in Lesotho is 0% for firms that export product outside of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) and 10% for those that sell products within SACU.

Many of Lesotho’s garment companies are subsidiaries of larger textile and garment corporations with manufacturing operations throughout the globe.

There are 40 factories specialising in both woven and knit garments. Two commission garment screen printers, two embroidery firms and a stand-alone laundry support the industry. Some garment firms have in-house embroidery, screen-printing, heat-transfer processes, and laundry and garment finishing facilities.

Although Lesotho factories compete with each other to get orders, they also work co-operatively to form a "cluster" that offers a full range of services.