The South African Textile, Clothing & Footwear Expo (ATF) is the only large-scale professional exhibition in the South African region and the largest textile and footwear exhibition in Africa. Since its inception in 1998, the exhibition has attracted audiences from South Africa, Bangladesh, Ghana, Kenya, India, Tanzania, Turkey, China, and other countries. The South African Textile, Clothing & Footwear Expo (ATF) has long been a key market for textile industries around the world due to its vast consumer market size and exemption from import quotas.

South Africa is the most developed economy in Africa. From a global perspective, it is a combination of developed and developing countries. Due to historical reasons, South Africa has a unique feature of having two markets coexisting, the white and the black market. The white market's clothing demand characteristics are generous, traditional, and skillfully crafted; the black market prefers colorful clothing, with mid-to-low-end products being more popular. South Africa's light industry is not very developed, but it has abundant leather resources, although its processing industry is relatively backward. Apart from the favorable conditions of South Africa's free trade system, which does not have licensing management for general imports and exports, the government also provides various preferential policies to attract foreign investment, providing business opportunities for Chinese enterprises to open up the South African market as well as the African market.

Currently, South Africa is importing a large amount of textile machinery from China. China has become South Africa's largest trading partner. The South African Textile, Clothing & Footwear Expo (ATF) is even more of a gateway for Chinese textile, clothing, and footwear companies to enter the African market.