Industry analysts are concerned as the country’s textile exports surpassed imports. Recently, there has been a growth in textile imports, driven not just by massive purchases of raw materials such as raw cotton, fabrics, and man-made textiles but surprisingly also of finished products. India, traditionally a major exporter saw its textile and garment imports grow almost t48.8 per cent until November this fiscal from a year ago to $7.2 billion. At the same time outbound shipment of such products dropped 13.4 per cent to $23.1 billion. And officials say, these imports are likely to be over $10 billion in the current fiscal and that’s a record.

PLI, trade deals hope to decrease import dependence

As per a Financial Express report, apparel imports increased 53 per cent to $1.2 billion in the first eight months of last year. This includes around 40 per cent of garment imports from Bangladesh where many Indian companies have set up units over the past 15 years to take advantage of its duty-free access to large markets of the US and EU while another 20 per cent has come from China.

However, experts feel once early investments made under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for textiles bear fruit, the situation will change for the better this fiscal. Moreover, recent trade deals with the UAE and Australia will further improve the situation and the government’s efforts to improve cotton production will also reduce imports of basic raw material cotton in 2023. The current shortage of cotton in the domestic market has not only hiked up the fibre import percentage but harmed production capacity of several units in the value chain. The increase in cotton prices also drove up the import value of both inputs and finished products along with Indian companies getting more garment supplies to India from their manufacturing units in Bangladesh.

Man-made fibers and other causes for export slump

With global consumption pattern currently focussed more on man-made fibers and technical textiles products, many factors such as the dominance of smaller businesses with limited scale manufacturing capacity and inflexible labour rules have affected this segment. Along with this, high logistics costs as well as stiffer competition from Bangladesh and Vietnam in the last decade have been detrimental to this segment.

As per a CCF Group study, India where the main exports are textiles followed by apparel, there has been a slump for five consecutive months leading up to December 2022. Textile products such as cotton and yarn products which account for nearly one-third of the total were down 3.6 percentage points compared with the proportion of the same period last year which was down 12.2 per cent over the same period last year.

From the volume of Indian cotton in the current markets, the 2022-23 Indian cotton yield is lower than expected in the previous period, which is a support for Indian cotton prices. Although downstream demand is relatively weak, it will be further affected by the present high cotton prices and the year ahead doesn’t look too optimistic. With cotton prices remaining high, there is not much significant improvement among its domestic midstream and upstream spinning and weaving mills where the operating rate remains at a low level and also lowers the actual international competitiveness of Indian textiles.

As per the CCF Group study, India’s low textile and apparel exports in 2022 was mainly due to a fall in exports in the second half of the year. What’s more, December stats do not show much improvement either. And the situation may not improve too much in the first quarter of 2023.

Franco Giachetti, founder of Morgan Tecnica Spa, Italy,a leading provider of cutting room solutions for the garment industry, passed away recently.

Giachetti, who studied electronics, was a pioneer in developing efficient and automated cutting room solutions. He founded Morgan Tecnica in 2008 and turned the company into a powerhouse, producing cutting room solutions, roll loading systems, automatic spreaders, table, labellers, and automatic cutters.

Morgan Tecnica also offers smart software for 2D and 3D modelling, product management, and order management. Giachetti was a visionary in the clothing industry and invented several innovative solutions, including the first electronic spreader and the first automatic spreader without clamps.

He had a strong bond with India and opened the company's first foreign branch, GA Morgan Dynamics, in Bengaluru.

Giachetti is survived by his daughter, Federica, who is now the President of Morgan Tecnica, and son, Fabrizio, who is the CEO of the company.

Global Textile and Apparel Summit (GTAS) will be held in Vietnam, April 20 to 21, 2023.

Experts from all over the world will share project case studies, discuss opportunities and deliver solutions for the major challenges faced by the Vietnamese industry.

The summit will also host discussions on digital textile printing, labour market trends, supply chain and production chain issues, supply chain management and apparel procurement, rethinking business models for the fashion industry, digital fashion and the metaverse, quality and compliance.

Vietnam is considered as one of the world’s leading manufacturers and exporters in the textile and apparel industry. After Vietnam fully reopened its doors to international visitors, the local market has quickly adapted to the new normal and is back on track after the pandemic.

Despite optimism for future development, Vietnam’s textile and apparel industry still faces many challenges such as rising costs, global supply chains and labour deficit. Vietnam’s apparel exports in the first half of 2022 were up 17 per cent year on year. The growth was fairly high amid challenges plaguing the global market.The high export revenue, coupled with high-quality Vietnamese products at competitive prices, has recently made the Vietnam textile and garment industry more attractive to foreign investors.

The global golf clothing market is growing at six per cent a year.

In 2021, the worldwide golf equipment and apparel market reached all-time high sales levels around the world. Strong consumer demand for golf products continued into 2022.However, several factors constrained manufacturers’ ability to meet orders during the first three quarters, and then economic woes dragged down the market in the fourth quarter.

The UK market is the fourth biggest in the world, behind South Korea, Japan and the US. While the US and Japan combine to represent over 66 percent of the world’s golf equipment market, Korean golfers spend more per capita on golf equipment and apparel than any other country.

The emergence of the trend of golf tourism, a surge in fitness consciousness among consumers and the trend for fashionable sports apparel have driven the growth of the global golf clothing market. The bottomwear segment is the fastest growing segment. This is due to the increase in the number of participations in sports tournaments and physical activities.

On the basis of distribution channels, the online store segment is registering the fastest growth, as users are inclining more towards online shopping due to the easy accessibility of different sports apparel.

A free directory of textile-to-textile recycling resources has been released by Accelerating Circularity.

Accelerating Circularity is a nonprofit focused on scaling textile-to-textile recycling,scalability, viability, and transparency. The aim of creating a comprehensive directory of international recyclers is to spur connections across the value chain.

The Accelerating Circularity Recycler List includes commercial technologies for chemical and mechanical recycling of polyester and cellulosics. The catalog details the different aspects of each recycler, such as location, feedstock fiber type, restrictions, etc. The information can be organized and filtered by users in the Airtable platform to pinpoint specific capabilities.The directory is launched with 143 company listings in 27 countries, including the US. The directory will be regularly updated.

Accelerating Circularity is a nonprofit that creates new supply chains and business models to turn textile waste into mainstream raw materials. It is a collaborative effort to accelerate the textile industry's move from linear to circular.Accelerating Circularity’s mission is to establish systems that will use the embedded value and resources in existing textiles for new products. It does research on existing systems for textile feedstock generation, collection, sorting, preprocessing, recycling, apparel and product development and brands and retailer businesses, maps existing systems and identifies gaps.

For the fourth quarter Levi Strauss’s revenue fell by six percent.

Despite the revenue decline, both sales and adjusted profit topped Wall Street expectations. The Levi’s brand grew eleven percent in 2022, and expanded its global market share more than any other denim brand for the second year in a row, led by share gains in both men’s and women’s.

The brand’s merchandise saw average selling prices rise by six percent in 2022.Globally, Levi Strauss anticipates opening more than 80 net new company-operated stores in the full year. In the fourth quarter, the company opened the first two brick-and-mortar stores for Beyond Yoga, the activewear brand it acquired in 2021.

During the fourth quarter, inventory delays and supply chain disruptions prevented the company from fulfilling select US wholesale customer orders. Total inventories increased 58 percent over the prior year. The increase relative to the third quarter was in line with the company’s expectations.

Core product represents more than two-thirds of total inventories. Levi’s expects the fourth quarter inventory growth will be the high point, and anticipates bringing inventory back to normal levels by the end of the second quarter. To do so, the company is planning to reduce inventory buys by 25 percent through the period.

Faibrics is developing a technology to convert CO2 emissions into high value polyester through a circular manufacturing approach.

By using CO2 emissions instead of fossil resources to manufacture polyester, Fairbrics, based in France, addresses one of the greatest global challenges –greenhouse gas emissions. This technology has the potential to provide highly polluting industries like textiles with an alternate environment-friendly and economically viable solution.

Fairbrics will initially address the fashion industry and has already secured strategic partnerships with major brands such as H&M, On-Running and Aigle. It intends to progressively diversify its technology platform with solutions addressing other sectors such as sports equipment, packaging and automotive.

European textile units are bound by new norms. Some 300 textile industry and 3,000 chemical plants in the European Union will have to comply with new legal normsto reduce their environmental impact.In the case of the textile sector, the environmental legislative changes concern in particular the wet processing of textiles, which include treatments such as bleaching, dyeing, or finishing treatment to give specific properties to the textile, like water repellence.

The new norm is part of the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles which aims to create a greener, more competitive textiles sector.

H&M expects the first quarter of this year to be very challenging. Even though the prices of some products were increased,this did not cover all the losses. A dynamic pricing strategy has been followed.

Instead of passing on the full cost to customers, H&M chose to strengthen its market position first. In anticipation of losses due to soaring production and distribution costs, the fashion brand will continue to raise prices in several categories at various rates.In line with this, several strategies have also been implemented, especially in dealing with the threat of recession and geopolitical conflicts such as between Russia and Ukraine. H&M quickly decided to stop sales in the affected countries and then stop business in Russia and Belarus, in anticipation of even greater losses. The decision to stop doing business in Russia, which is an important and profitable market, has had a significant negative impact on the company’s results.

Meanwhile H&M has decided to close all its stores in England. Changes in fashion trends and customer behavior have forced the brand, which has been around for almost 66 years, to reorganize its business plan. During September 2022 to November 2022, H&M's turnover in the country was very thin due to soaring production and distribution costs.

White Milano will be held in Italy, February 24 to 27, 2023.

This is a ready-to-wear and accessory trade show and it will host 300 brands. The event is a venue where there will be a strong international brand mix, underscoring the importance of innovation and a selection of designers that focuses on quality and uniqueness.

A key element in the White Milano concept is the enhancement of brands’ and designers’ ethnic and cultural diversity. The Secret Rooms project that promotes the work of international designers will once again take place at the fair. Among the brands and designers bowing at White Milano are an American luxury brand and a Scottish designer with Nigerian origins. Five brands from Norway will focus on creativity and sustainability, both environmental and to promote a better lifestyle for employees. After the easing of restrictions by China in December, organizers are also hoping buyers from China will return to White Milano, allowing smaller brands to connect with the Chinese market. The global society will be represented by four unknown individuals whose images in the video change and morph into one another.

White represents a clear response to the needs of brands and of buyers. The quality of the brand mix and of the creative talents, the power of the innovative contents, and of the exceptional formats have turned out to be successful and capable of attracting the best buyers and insiders.

The budget has announced a scheme for enhancing the yield of extra long staple (ELS) cotton. This is expected to help increase the manufacturing of value added garments and also reduce imports of extra long staple cotton.

After the introduction of Bt technology only for long staple cotton, the industry started facing a shortage of extra long staple cotton. The industry’s requirement of extra long staple cotton is around 20 lakh bales while the country produces only five lakh bales and heavily depends on imports of superior quality extra long staple cotton.

The term extra long staple cotton means cotton that is produced from pure strain varieties of the Barbadense species or any hybrid of the species, or other similar types of extra long staple cotton. Short staple cotton is quicker and cheaper to grow, process, and weave than long staple cotton, meaning that cotton products made from short staple cotton can be sold at a cheaper price. But in this case, quality tumps price in the long run. As staple length increases, so does cotton’s soft, silky feel. For this reason, long staple cotton is a popular choice to make sheets, towels, and other quality products. Items made with long staple cotton don’t pill or tear asmuch and can even become softer over time