For the first seven months of 2019, Vietnam’s cloth imports increased 4.5 per cent over the same period last year. Imports from China increased by 10 per cent, it is expected imports will continue to grow.

The textile industry is Vietnam's second largest export industry. The two digit growth has attracted a large number of investors, but its upstream industries such as weaving and dyeing and finishing don’t attract investment due to concerns about environmental pollution. This leads to the current imbalance in Vietnam's textile industry. Poor cloth distribution leads to the restricted development of the industry and low added value of production.

The EUFTA requires textile cloth should be produced locally. This may induce Vietnam's textile industry to invest in upstream industries. But pollution concerns come in the way. In the past few years, some projects devoted to the production of cloth materials have been turned down. For example, the TAL group of China put forward a dyeing cloth project, which was rejected. Dyeing cloth links do have the risk of polluting the environment, but if the project is put into the wastewater treatment process, the pollution can be minimised or even eliminated.

Baosheng’s July sales increased by 21.9 per cent. For the seven month period to July sales increased 19.7 per cent. The international gross margin increased by 22.9 per cent. For the first half of the year Baosheng’s net profit rose by 39.3 per cent in China and sales rose by 19.4 per cent.

Baosheng is a Taiwanese sporting goods retailer. For the first half of the year revenues of Yuyuan, which owns 62.2 per cent of Baosheng, grew by 6.32 per cent. Its sales increased by 3.2 per cent in July. For the seven month period sales were up six per cent. In the first half of this year, Yuyuan’s net profit increased by 10.52 per cent. Earnings per share increased by 12.47 per cent.

The Yuyuan group faced many adversities, especially the US threat to impose tariffs on shoes made in China, and therefore many customers changed their purchasing strategies, which accelerated the group’s adjustment of production capacity. At the same time, the group faces fluctuation of customers caused by the more flexible purchase method and the change of consumer preferences. Although China’s retail industry has slowed down in the first half of the year, and especially the apparel industry, whose growth rate has dropped by 620 basis points, the sports industry is thriving.

Wool’s supply and retail chain is facing difficulties. A glut of shopping space, stores and websites are chasing sales at a time when business costs are constantly rising while demand is not. Chinese textile mills have been scaling down their buying orders and processing activities since April. Domestic shoppers in China, who consume half that country’s processed wool, are spending less, and European and North American demand has also slowed this year leaving mounting stocks of unsold product in wool’s pipeline.

Australian wool growers have had to cope with the devastating impact of climate change and the ongoing drought. Most of the world’s merino wool is produced on dryland farms which are completely dependent on natural rainfall. Higher raw wool prices are the only saving grace for many who are spending heavily on feeding their flocks. Wool sheep farming is a lifelong commitment and many industry members have been working in wool all their professional lives. Most farmers are third or fourth generation, some with family farm histories reaching back much further.

The ongoing pollution of waterways and precious land resources by the fast-fashion model and the manmade fiber industry has left consumers with a serious moral dilemma. Wool has natural durability with the wool fiber being able to bend 20,000 times before breaking.

Bangladesh’s garment industry is booming and setting export records but workers struggle to get by. Senior sewing operators toil for up to 14 hours a day. Workers have no time for recreation and frequently have to work at their factory on weekends. Couples live in cramped quarters, a rented single room in a house with a tin roof. They have little privacy and often have to share a toilet, bathroom and kitchen with another family who live in the same house.

A huge workload follows a slight wage increase. Workers in an assembly line-like system of production are now expected to produce more items of clothing per hour. Workers who used to stitch 100 pieces of apparel in one hour are now being ordered to stitch 120 to 130 pieces. Workers in the readymade garment trade, the most dynamic sector of Bangladesh’s economy that produces clothes for leading western brands, do not receive health coverage from their employers.

Bangladesh readymade garments exports tripled over a ten-year period and account for 84 per cent of Bangladesh’s total export volume. Every year, the country’s garment sector, which employs 3.5 million people, keeps setting records for exports and dominating all Bangladesh sectors in that area.

CITI has asked the government to extend the tax incentive scheme to the entire textile industry to combat a sluggish market. The organisation has also requested the government to transfer its subsidies directly to farmers’ bank accounts instead of offering them a minimum support price for their goods.

Sanjay Jain, Chairman says, textile and clothing segments are presently going through a deep crisis due to uncompetitive fibre prices, declining exports, incompetitiveness of our products in international markets, embedded taxes not getting refunded, and lack of working capital, among others. Exports of cotton yarn are also suffering. Fibre exports dipped 33 per cent during the first quarter of current financial year which ended in June with exports at 226 million kg compared to 338 million kg during the same time period a year ago. Domestic demand for textile also declined around 15 per cent.

CITI hopes for increased market incentives but also warns against promoting new spinning mills. It has urged the government to refrain from incentivising new spinning mills for three years to make sure that existing mills do not turn idle. It should instead focus on keeping operational mills going, especially that many spinning mills across India have cut prediction by between 15 per cent and 50 per cent due to reduced textile demand.

Prior to GST, there were 6.50 lakh power loom machines in Surat. Post-GST, the total number of weaving machines has been reduced to 5.50 lakh. Polyester fabric production has fallen by almost half in the country’s largest manmade fabric hub. The high cost of raw material, including yarn, is posing a major challenge to the manmade fabric sector. Also, the import of cheap fabrics from China, Bangladesh and other Asian countries has cast a dark shadow on the sector. The quantum of investment in manmade fabrics has significantly reduced under the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund (ATUF) scheme due to the drastic cut in subsidy provided. About seven approved projects have come to a standstill. To compete with global competition, shuttle-less looms are a must to maintain quality in weaving. However, restoration of 30 per cent subsidy under the ATUF is the need of the hour to maintain modernisation in the manmade fabric sector.

Some 20 textile dyeing and processing mills in Surat have shut shop. One reason is falling demand for polyester. Daily production has gone down to three crore meters a day from 4.5 crore meters a day. Production costs have also increased by 15 per cent to 25 per cent due to a rise in labor and raw material charges. Surat has some 325 mills.

The manmade fiber industry contributes two per cent to India’s GDP and provides jobs to over 18 million people directly and more than 20 million indirectly. Given the increasing focus on protecting the environment, the demand for manmade fiber textiles as a substitute for cotton is growing globally. Increasing price volatility, durability and sustainability concerns have made leading fashion brands gradually shift the fiber mix in favor of synthetic fibers, especially polyester and viscose. Currently manmade fibers dominate global textile fiber consumption. The ratio is manmade fibers 72 per cent and natural fibers 28 per cent. The share of manmade fibers has been steadily increasing due to cutting-edge technology.

Manmade fibers contribute 16 per cent to total textile and clothing exports from India. Technical textiles are expected to see a significant growth in coming times. India exports the manmade fiber textile value chain, including fiber, yarn, fabrics and made-ups to nearly 140 countries. More than 60 per cent of India’s exports are of value-added items such as made-ups and fabrics. India produces over 1,441 million kg of manmade fibers and over 3,000 million kg of manmade filaments annually. India is the second largest producer of polyester and viscose in the world.

Powerloom weavers in the country’s largest manmade fiber sector have decided to protest against the spinners of nylon filament yarn for forcing them to sign a petition in favor of anti-dumping duty on the yarn imported from China and other countries.

Leaders of the powerloom industry stated nylon filament yarn spinners are circulating the petition amongst the nylon yarn weavers for signing in favor of the anti-dumping duty. The petition states that the surge of imported yarn at differential prices is affecting profitability of fabrics.

There is no technical support or any complaint redressal system with imported yarn and no consistency f manufacturers. However, we have been regularly buying nylon yarn manufactured by Indian spinners and thus the anti-dumping duty on imported yarn is called for.

Japanese trading house Itochu will provide support for Africa’s textile industry, starting with Ethiopia, which has emerged as an alternative production base to Asia. This will mark the first full-scale production by a Japanese company in the East-African country. Ethiopia’s low labor costs have prompted western brands such as Gap and H&M as well as Chinese and Indian apparel companies to make inroads here.

Itochu has signed an MoU with the Ethiopian Textile Industry Development Institute on promoting the textile sector. The company will dispatch its own employees in addition to five outside Japanese experts to two factories in northern Ethiopia’s Tigre region. The plants will make apparels for export to Japan.

Itochu handles clothing manufacturing from spinning to sewing in such bases as Vietnam and Myanmar. The company aims to quintuple Ethiopian manufacturing efficiency in three years by reviewing productions steps and labor management

Redress, the Hong-Kong based environmental charity will showcase 10 new collections at the Grand Final of the world’s largest sustainable fashion design competition-the Redress Design Award-on September 5, 2019. The collections also included menswear for the first time alongside women’s wear and unisex lines. Create Hong Kong (Create HK) will be lead sponsor of the event which will showcase collections from India, Germany, Canada, Australia, UK, Israel and Spain. These were shipped by the event’s long-term partner UPS. It will also include collections from two Hong-Kong based finalists.

The finalists of this cycle were challenged to incorporate sustainably sourced Eastman Naia TM fabrics into their 100 per cent textile waste-based collection pieces. The team behind the shoot of this collection celebrates the powerful influence that these collections possess to break the stigma of reused and recycled fabrics. The artistic direction of the photoshoot features bright backdrops of artistically torn paper and referenced the breakthrough of sustainable fashion into the mainstream. Renowned fashion photographer Donald Chiu and Hong Kong-based styist Kieran Ho led the photoshoot to capture these collections at creative collaborative workspace.

The Redress Design Award 2019 will offer a number of invaluable prizes. The winner of the first prize will collaborate with a team of fashion leaders on a contemporary sustainable collection for one of the brands of JNBY Group which will retail in their stores across the globe. The runner-up will be awarded with a personal and tailored mentorship with distinguished fashion designer and Redress Design Award Judge Orsola de Castro.