Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) believes, joining new-generation agreements like the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreements (EVFTA) and the Comprehensive and Progress Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) has brought great economic benefits to the nation.

Last year, Vietnam exported goods worth $40 billion and $38.7 billion to the European and CPTPP member countries respectively. Trade between Vietnam and EU member countries declined by 1.8 per cent to $55.4 billion as compared to that of 2019.

As per Vietnam Plus, the biggest importers of Vietnamese goods among European countries are: Belgium ($2.3 billion), Germany ($6.6 billion), the Netherlands ($6.9 billion), France (nearly $3.3 billion) and Italy ($3.1 billion. According to the MoIT, some of the items exported include footwear, plastic products, rice, textiles and garment and farm produce.

Vietnam's export turnover to CPTPP members also rose in 2020 compared to the previous year Total trade between Vietnam and other CPTPP member countries increased by 1.9 per cent to reach $79 billion last year,. Vietnam exported goods worth $38.7 billion to these countries and spent $40.3 billion on imports, resulting in a trade deficit of 1.6 billion USD last year.

The country enjoyed a trade surplus with some countries namely Canada and Mexico with a year-on-year rise of 11.8 percent and 12.1 percent, respectively.

Key products for exports to the CPTPP member countries are aquatic products, textile and garments, footwear, pepper, and wooden products.

As per eMarketer data from Insider Intelligence, e-commerce continued to drive UK textile, clothing, and footwear sales in the first half of 2021 and will make up 48.5 per cent of the category's sales by the end of the year. The category's retail ecommerce sales in the UK will approach $20 billion in 2021. The proportion of textile, clothing and footwear sales in UK’s total e-commerce sales is likely to decline from 12.2 per cent in 2019 to 10.4 per cent in 2025. The proportion of ecommerce sales in the UK in this category increased to 37.6 per cent in 2020 from 23.3 per cent in 2019.

Retail sales in the category are likely to decline by 3.9 per cent in 2021 after plummeting by 23.5 per cent in 2020. During the pandemic-induced lockdowns in 2020, many UK-based shoppers confined to their homes saw little need to shop for apparel, and even now, as restrictions ease, apparel will still not be a consumer focus.

Angus Ireland, Program Manager-Fiber Advocacy and Eco-credentials, Australian Wool Innovation (AWI) believe, the impact of livestock’s contribution to global warming is being overstated. As per a report by the Farmers’ Weekly, it had been previously reported that livestock contributed 18 per cent of human-produced greenhouse gas emissions around the world.

UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had earlier calculated that methane gas generated from the digestion of pasture remained in the atmosphere for 100 or more years, continuing to have a harmful effect for that length of time. However, a recent research by the LEAP project reassessed methane’s contribution to global warming and proved that it was relatively short-lived in the atmosphere. Ireland said, the UN had recognized the new findings, and had formed a technical advisory group that reported to the LEAP project.

Ireland says, this new information was also proving useful for AWI’s current attempts to counter the EU’s efforts to mandate that clothing and textile products carry labels displaying their environmental credentials. The EU was targeting the textile industry in order to achieve climate neutrality and a true circular economy, he said.

India’s largest private sector company, Reliance Industries (RIL) plans to set up a recycled polyester staple fiber (PSF) manufacturing facility in Andhra Pradesh. The facility will be built and operated by India’s leading plastic recycling and waste management company, Srichakra Ecotex India. The facility will double RIL’s recycling capacity to 5 billion post-consumer PET bottles. The company is focusing on sustaining India’s post-consumer PET recycling rate which is currently the highest in the world.

The expansion of PET recycling capacity is part of Mukesh Ambani’s vision to transform the company’s legacy business into sustainable, circular and net zero carbon materials business and support the entrepreneurs to take risk throughout the value chain. RIL currently recycles PET bottles at its Barabanki, Hoshiarpur and Nagothane plants. The post-consumer PET bottles are used as a raw material for manufacturing re-cycled polyester fibre. The fibers manufactured through this process are branded as Recron GreenGold and RIL through its Hub Excellence Partners (HEP) (selected downstream mills) manufactures R|Elan GreenGold fabrics, one of the greenest fabrics in the world.

At present, RIL converts more than 2 billion post-consumer PET bottles into fibers annually. With the addition of Srichakra capacity, RIL will be instrumental in converting about 5 billion used PET bottles into value-added fibers.

Faruque Hassan, President, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association have urged Vikram Kumar Doraiswami, Indian High Commission in Dhaka to expedite and facilitate Bangladeshi’s export-import trade through Bangaon-Benapole land port. Hassan said Bangladeshi’s apparel exporters, who import substantial volume of raw materials from India, are facing lots of delays in transit of imported goods from India.

This is leading to many trucks laden with import and export goods being stuck at Indian points, hampering Bangladesh’s trade with India and impacting the transit time of raw materials for RMG factories in Bangladesh, he added.

The export trade of Bangladesh’s ready-made garments is also facing same problem, he added. Hassan said, Bangladesh RMG exporters are also struggling to meet up the lead time given by foreign buyers to export apparels in the middle of pandemic and locked down situation.

In a direct completion to Lululemon, apparel brands are expanding their athletic apparel offerings. As per a Pymnts.com report, Gap Inc.’s Athleta brandhas launched a new wellness platform, while Victoria’s Secret has started a new collection of athleticwear and Kate Hudson-backed Fabletics plans to launch a $5 billion IPO soon.

Footwear company Wolverine Worldwide acquired UK-based direct-to-consumer (D2C) athletic apparel brand Sweaty Betty for $410 million in cash. Wolverine also owns Keds, Sperry, Stride Rite, Merrell and Saucony, among other brands. Brand Sweaty Betty plans to accelerate the opening of brick-and-mortar stores in the US. It also aims to convert its 60-plus stores into experience for consumers. It has already evolved its product range to be beyond just performance activewear to more lifestyle.

As per Blake Kreuger, CEO, Wolverine Worldwide, the athleisure segment is poised for continued accelerated growth. The market represents over $200 billion in revenue and is currently growing in the mid to high single digits. Earlier this year, Calvin McDonald, CEO, Lululemon had said that the pandemic has accelerated and accentuated trends that have caused athleisure to grow in the last several years.

Indian Parliament awaits approval for the proposed scheme to launch seven mega funding textile parks (MITRA) from the Cabinet. As per Darshana Jardosh, Minister of State for textiles, so far, the Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks has launched a Rs 1,469 crore grant, generated employment for 1.02 lakh people and attracted investments worth Rs 13,311 crore.

The second wave of COVID-19 had led to closure of all National Textile Corporation (NTC) mill operations in April, 2021. However, NTC restored operations in some mills in July, 2021 as per raw material availability. The Government has on-boarded about 1.50 lakh weavers on government e-marketplace that allows them to promote their merchandise straight to varied authorities departments and organizations and to improve productiveness, advertising and marketing capabilities and guarantee higher incomes, 125 Handloom Producer corporations have been shaped in several states.

Parliament also granted Rs 1,107.5 crore towards the pending installments of 2019-20 and former years, in 2020-21 to clear the dedicated liabilities beneath Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS),

The UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) has launched a blockchain traceability project in partnership with IBM and retailers including H&M, Next and New Look. As per a Ledger Insights report, the nine-month sustainability project will develop and pilot a supply chain traceability solution for the UK fashion industry with £1.4 million support from Innovate UK.

As per the data firm Quantis, the global fashion industry is one of the world’s biggest polluters. The apparel sector makes up 6.7 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, rising to 8 per cent when footwear is included. The new platform will use IBM’s blockchain technology to share information about the clothing products – such as place and date of production, product composition and environment-related certificates – accessible to consumers via a QR code.

Key supply chain processes will be digitized, creating a shared system of data that different parties can access. This will all be stored on IBM Cloud, which will also use AI technology for optimization and to detect and respond to supply chain disruption. Other retailers participating in the pilot include N Brown and yarn manufacturer Laxtons.

Bangladesh’s exports earnings dropped to $3.47 billion in July this year from the $3.91 billion last year. As per a report by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB), exports earnings dropped by 11.9 per cent year-on-year in July. Professor Mustafizur Rahman, Fellow, Centre for the Policy Dialogue attributes this decline to Eid holidays, factory closures amid lockdowns, and container congestion at the Chittagong port. However, Bangladesh is getting a lot of purchase orders being diverted from China, India, Myanmar, and Vietnam, he adds. He hopes exports will recover in August, and Bangladesh will soon return to pre-pandemic levels.

Apparel manufacturers also agree that the current dip in exports is temporary as they have enough purchase orders from retailers in the EU and the US markets. Shahidullah Azim, Vice-President, Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), said they are very optimistic about export performance in the coming months as manufacturers receive a lot of orders from buyers right around this time of the year.

In July, Bangladesh’s export earnings from woven products declined 18 per cent year-on-year whereas that from knitwear shipments fell 5 per cent. Earnings from the jute and jute sector slumped by 41 per cent year-on-year to $60.7 million. Home textile product exports declined by 1.76 per cent to $92.36 million.

Leather and leather goods exports surged by 1 per cent to $90.5 million in July, up from $89.9 million in the same month last year.

With input from over 3,500 exhibitors, buyers and partners, Spring Fair, the leading Home and Gift show, Spring Fair will become a four-day show. The new show dates run from February 06, 2022=February 09, 2022 at NEC Birmingham and will include the introduction of late-night openings until 7.30pm on the Sunday and Monday.

Simon Lau, Event Director, Spring Fair, says: “Buying behaviors have changed in recent years and visitors have communicated that they welcome a 4-day show and that a more condensed few days with the same number of talks, demonstrations, and meetings would make it a more dynamic and action-packed event. We are also really pleased to introduce two late night openings. A trend common in retail already, the additional opportunities to trade will greatly benefit visitors attending for one day only.”

Sarah Ward, CEO, The Giftware Associationadds: “This change has been a long time coming, driven by collaboration and feedback from the community with the aim of delivering a better return on time and investment for both exhibitors and visitors alike. Spring Fair is still the largest and longest home and gift trade show in the UK, and I’m excited by the prospect of late-night shopping!”

New initiatives introduced at the show focus on newness and delivering improved return on investment and return on time. Curated Meetings will offer dedicated networking and facilitated, pre-approved and pre-booked meetings between exhibitors and buyers.