The European Union Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) was approved on August 1 paving the way for increased trade between the EU and Vietnam. As per the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the EVFTA is expected to help increase Vietnam’s GDP 4.6 per cent and exports to the EU 42.7 per cent by 2025. Analysts expect the trade deal to give a much-needed boost to Vietnam’s industries, such as manufacturing, as it looks to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The agreement will eliminate 65 per cent duties on EU exports to Vietnam while the remaining will be gradually phased out over a period of 10 years. The agreement will also eliminate 71 per cent duties on Vietnam exports to the EU, with the remaining being eliminated over a period of seven years. The EVFTA also contains important provisions for intellectual property (IP) rights, investment liberalization, and sustainable development. This includes a commitment to implement the International Labor Organization (ILO) standards and the UN Convention on Climate Change.

The EVFTA aims to liberalize both tariff and non-tariff barriers for key imports on both sides over a period of 10 years. For Vietnam, tariff elimination will benefit key export industries, including the manufacturing of smartphones and electronic products, textiles, footwear and agricultural products, such as coffee. These industries are also very labor-intensive. Increasing Vietnam’s export volume to the EU, the FTA will facilitate the expansion of these industries, both in terms of capital and increasing employment.

Helsinki Fashion Week’s first purely digital and sustainable showcase via the “cyberspace utopia” platform Digital Village, enabled viewers to watch 3-D fashion films and livestreamings from around the globe. Around 31 designers presented their new collections over the week, and 15 of them were paired with 3-D designers months ahead of time to digitize their latest collections via HFW’s “Keeping Up With the Kardashians”- or “Big Brother”-style designer residency program, according to Evelyn Mora, founder of Helsinki Fashion Week.

Each video showcased a handful of looks from designers selected from around the world. Models’ faces, which were 3-D scanned from humans, may look a bit scary, but the details of the garments and the movements on the bodies were well executed. The show allowed designers to pick and choose the wildest settings to present their work in, instead of a blank runway. For example, Patrick McDowell’s runway was a protester’s heaven, where statues of angels were sprayed with graffiti. Nece Gene’s show took place on the surface of a deserted planet. AVTR’s new collection was presented on a chessboard, with dance and battle performances.

With the help of its blockchain partner LUKSO, Helsinki Fashion Week also launched a 3-D online store. The store houses virtual looks and garments of selected participating designers, It allows users to claim 3-D clothes and purchase the service of digitally wearing the garments.

Helsinki Fashion Week is expected to release a digital sustainability report later this month with Normative, a Swedish auditing company, to measure the environmental impact of its digital showcase compared with previous physical editions.

As per FTI Consultings’s Trends in the Apparel Sector survey, the economic catastrophe spurred by COVID-19 was particularly harsh on the apparel industry. With the entire world practicing self-distancing, governments across the US deeming apparel as ‘non-essential’ business, retailers saw their sales plummet. Around 36 per cent of the 1,000 consumers surveyed said support of COVID-19 victims and frontline workers influenced their brand loyalty. Nearly the same number of respondents reported being influenced by great prices.

Price and value drove the majority of customers to switch brands. Around 29 percent respondents switched brands during COVID-19 due to the product’s price and value factors. Around 54 per cent reported missing brick and mortar stores for the touch feel and see factor they offered. However, these consumers also highlighted the convenience of online purchasing and preference for contactless purchase/concerns about hygiene as being the core drivers for customers not looking to return to stores.

According to these respondents, online apparel sales are projected to cannibalize about 7 to 10 per cent of store sales. They advised retailers to improve distribution channels and automation to meet this demand. Retailers should also conduct a holistic review of their store portfolios to identify what store closures are necessary for long-term survival. One-third of consumers reported being excited to return to stores for the tactile experience of shopping, such as trying on clothes and leaving with new purchases in hand.

AEPC has hailed the government’s decision to raise exporters’ ceiling limit – both – liability and turnover – for availing the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee scheme (ECLGS). Many MSMEs earlier criticized the scheme for granting insufficient funds of Rs 3-lakh-crore for thousands of micro units in the country. But on July 29, member lending institution sanctioned a sum of Rs 136,155 crore for the scheme, of which Rs 87,277 crore has been disbursed.

The government has also decided to include individual loans given for business purpose within the ambit of ECLGS increasing the earlier liability ceiling from Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore and annual turnover from Rs 100 crore to Rs 250 crore. AEPC has sought a further increase in the liability limit up to Rs 100 crore and removal of the turnover limit as under the new classification export turnover would not be counted for MSMEs.

Investors group Club Deal 8 (CD8), which aims to buy American retailer Brooks Brothers, plans to collaborate with an American Group to support its strategies for the acquisition of the Black Label. Brooks Brothers has obtained $80 million in debtor-in-possession financing from ABG-BB LLC, a partnership between Authentic Brands Group LLC and Simon Property Group Inc. ABG is open to working with the Italian group, although any partnership would most likely involve a licensing arrangement rather than a co-ownership deal.

Last month, Brooks Brothers filed a motion in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware to obtain court approval of an asset purchase agreement with Sparc Group LLC, a company backed by ABG with Simon Property Group. The CD8 offer will stand on three pillars: sustainability; a lower number of stores compared to the 125 proposed by Authentic Brands Group, which has stepped forward with a $305 million stalking-horse bid to purchase Brooks Brothers, and a greater emphasis on the online channel.

CD8 investors include Alessandro Giglio, President, Giglio Group; the Biella-based Gruppo Verzoletto; Brando Crespi, Founder, Pro-Natura; legal manager Lorenza Morello, and Studio Dentons as an adviser.

Analytics firm GlobalData expects the pandemic to cost the apparel and footwear industries across the Asia-Pacific region $95.4 billion in lost sales this year. The global industry will lose $395.6 billion in sales, which represents a 19.5-per-cent decline on last year’s figures. The sector will account for 29.1 per cent of the total $1.3617 trillion impact of lost revenues by the retail industry during the period.

According to research, 60 per cent consumers noted trustworthiness, risk-free and familiarity as being the major factors currently influencing their choices of products/services. To increase sales, brands should continuously engage with consumers through social-media channels and personalized messages said Vijay Bhupathiraju, Retail Analyst, GlobalData. They should build trust by delivering messages addressing CO VID-19 and social responsibility and advertise the safety and hygiene measures taken during the manufacturing process and in-stores to drive more consumers to the stores.

Travel restrictions and safety concerns about the COVID-19 have forced Turkish denim mill Calik Denim to reschedule its third annual Ever Evolving Talks event in Amsterdam to April 2021. The conference was scheduled to take place the day before Kingpins Amsterdam in October, which announced last week its plans to cancel the trade show as well.

Calik Denim launched the annual conference in 2018 as a catalyst for change for the fashion industry as a whole. The first event focused on innovation, technology and sustainability. The second event dove deeper into topics like blockchain, Gen Z consumption habits and climate change.

Based on the company’s motto ‘Ever Evolving,’ which emphasizes continuous development, the Ever Evolving Talks by Calik Denim event is intended to bring industry stakeholders together and support their collective development.

The Auburn University RFID Lab, GS1 US and several leading retail companies have completed the Chain Integration Project (CHIP). The groundbreaking proof-of-concept demonstrated the effectiveness of using blockchain in combination with RFID to gather serialized product information. Three brands, Nike, PVH Corp., and Herman Kay, as well as two retailers, Kohl’s and Macy’s, contributed live data to the project. Though blockchain’s potential is still undefined in retail, CHIP represented an important step in helping to solve supply chain challenges that have plagued the industry for decades.

CHIP participants named claims and chargebacks as one of the costliest problems for brands and retailers. There's simply little to no communication of serialized data between the stakeholders involved. Claims are often settled in the absence of sufficient shipment information on both brand and retailer sides.

Though blockchain technology can hold them accountable for their agreements and create more order transparency, trading partners need to focus on the basic tenets of supply chain visibility to fully maximize blockchain for this purpose. Companies pursuing blockchain should have globally unique product identification in place (not proprietary identification numbers) as well as a uniform way to capture how the product changes hands throughout the supply chain, such as RFID. Without supply chain visibility and data completeness, order accuracy cannot be improved.

Data by The Cotton Textiles Export Promotion Council (TEXPROCIL) reveals, India’s textile exports to China declined by 74 per cent to touch $90 million during the April-June quarter this year. China’s share in India’s total exports of cotton textile products also halved to 6.9 per cent during the quarter as against 14 per cent in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

This decline is a result of reciprocal measures carried out by Indian and Chinese governments such as detailed shipment inspections at ports, delaying clearing of goods, thereby also contributing to decline in exports, says KV Srinivasan, Managing Director, Premier Mills. Substitution of textile imports from China as well as contemplation of anti-dumping duties on certain Chinese products may further impact these imports, he said.

Overall, India’s cotton textile exports during the first quarter declined by 47 per cent to $1.29 billion against $2.42 billion in the same quarter last year. One of the main reasons for the decline was supply chain disruptions. Delays in documentation, especially Certificates of Origin in countries like China, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia also delayed deliveries, hitting exports, said Siddhartha Rajagopal, Executive Director, TEXPROCIL.

The Cambodian Footwear Association (CFA) has appealed to the European Commission to postpone partial withdrawal of its Everything but Arms (EBA) trade benefits. As per CFA, the withdrawal will cause economic damage well beyond what has been foreseen when the European Council undertook its assessment in 2019 and issued its Cambodia EBA decision in early February 2020.

COVID-19 has already resulted in the loss of 30,000-40,000 jobs in the country’s footwear sector. According to a recent membership survey by CFA, footwear production volumes in the first half of 2020 declined on an average 20-40 per cent per factory compared to 2019, and sectoral employment reductions led to loss of 30,000-40,000 jobs.

The survey forecasts worse outlook for the second half of 2020. There is not a single member factory that reported an increase in orders compared to the first half of the year, with most factories forecasting a further drop in production for an overall decline of 40-60 per cent for full year 2020 compared to 2019.

Based upon existing order volumes for the second half of 2020, 70 per cent of member factories are preparing to cut jobs or suspend production. Most of the remaining 30 per cent have already reduced employment and forecast production only at already reduced levels.