Mainland China, which now accounts for 20 per cent of global luxe sales is forecasted to have the biggest market share by 2025. As per Bain & Company and Tmall report, the luxury goods market is forecasted to grow 48 per cent to almost $53.6 bn in 2020 with leather goods and jewelery the most in-demand categories. Demand growth is attributed to the increase in domestic spending resulting from a drop in international travel.

After Covid-19 lockdowns in early 2020, China’s luxury-goods market began to grow in April as consumers made purchases within the country. This repatriation of consumption is one of four factors driving this growth. Reduction in import duties, price harmonization and stricter gray market controls, helped China’s luxury markets boom, reports Bain. Positive consumer sentiment and increased wealth also helped to drive luxury consumption, as did government measures designed to encourage spending.

As per the report, Chinese millennial may be its core consumers, making up more than 70 per cent of the platform’s luxury fashion and lifestyle consumers, but Gen Z shoppers are an emerging strong category. Gen Z puts greater emphasis on “the pursuit of fashion”, and their purchase of luxury collaborations and limited editions increased 300 to 400 per cent between January and October 2020. Indeed, digitalization is another factor driving luxury in China, with Covid-19 resulting in online channels increasing luxury sales by around 150 per cent in 2020.

Another unique trend observed in 2020 was the online growth of domestic duty-free channel, including sales from the Hainan duty-free zone, where 55 per cent merchandise sold online. Similarly, China’s annual luxury online penetration also increased 23 per cent in 2020, up from 13 per cent in 2019, driven by beauty products and domestic duty-free sales.

However, despite the boom, Bain notes the growth in Mainland China failed to compensate for the loss of Chinese spend overseas – the drop in travel saw consumers’ total luxury spend fall around 35 per cent.

The readymade garment (RMG) manufacturing export earnings, the backbone of Bangladesh’s economy dropped 2.99 per cent to $15.54 billion. As per data from Export Promotion Bureau (EBP) RMG contributes 84 per cent to the national exports. While the overall garment export observed an extraordinary 16.94 per cent year-on-year drop in 2020.

Rubana Huq, President of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) 2020 was a dark year for the industry with lockdowns in Europe and the US and its impact on retail and demand, the worst-ever Christmas sales, and effects of price decline. Of the export earnings, knitwear shipment earned $8.52 billion, up 3.9 per cent compared to a year ago, while woven exports declined 10.22 per cent to $7.01 billion. However, knitwear export rose as consumers mostly wear casual dresses with stay and work from home.

EPB data also showed that apparel export was down 9.64 per cent in December as the pandemic continues to pound the global economy. Last month, woven garment export recorded the worst performance since June plunging 18.07 per cent. While knitwear export fell 0.45 per cent. One of the key reasons for knitwear growth was easy sourcing of raw materials for local manufacturers. Whereas the majority of raw materials required to produce woven garments, need to be imported.

Leading textile units mainly, Winsome Textiles, Auro Textiles, Auro Dyeing and Auro Textile-II in the Baddi industrial area in Himachal Pradesh have been directed to close their dyeing processes as their effluents have rendered the common effluent treatment plant (CETP) defunct. Three textile units have been levied environmental compensation from July 2020 to December 2020 (160 days), while Auro Textiles has been levied for 140 days. For violating the provisions of the Water Act, 1974, and Environmental Protection Act, 1981, an environmental compensation worth Rs 1.86 crore has been imposed on them by the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB).

This issue was under process from last year as an inspection committee of the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had observed in November 2019 that these textile units engaged in dyeing processes generate category-IV effluents comprising concentrated dyes.

While the government had directed the textile units to chalk out action plans and install their own treatment system to treat these effluents and follow inlet and treatment quality standards the textile units had challenged the order in the high court. However, the court has disposed their petitions and directed the State Government to take appropriate directions as per law against the polluting units while observing that no industry can be allowed to pollute water bodies.

Leading designer, Steve Madden, has appointed María Teresa Kumar to the company’s board of directors. Kumar will be a member of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Committee. Her inclusion expands the board to 10 directors.

Edward Rosenfeld, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer has expressed delight on the appointment of Kumar. Her expertise in connecting and engaging with young audiences, particularly through digital communications, social media, and influencers, along with her passion for creating positive change in the world make her uniquely well-suited for enhancing value for the brand.

Kumar is also the President and CEO of Voto Latino, which she co-founded and built into America’s largest Latinx voter registration and advocacy organization. She is a regular on-air contributor for MSNBC. Serving on the Boards of Emily’s List and the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers. Kumar is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a Council on Foreign Relations Life Member.

Before the pandemic hit global businesses, with Brexit and US China trade stand off the biggest question that bothered businesses worldwide was will the age of globalization come to an end? In fact, COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of long-distance supply chains even more. With 64 (Thomasnet) US manufacturers actively looking at bringing back production nearer home there is a clear redrawing of global supply lines, wrote Enno Lueckel, VP, Scoutbee recently in Spend Matters.

Lueckel writes, “Amid this uncertainty, resilience is the new supply chain imperative. Across industries, there is growing recognition that managing supply chains for maximum efficiency hampers companies’ ability to respond to risk events.” And the frequency of such disruptions is rising, with a recent McKinsey Global Institute survey showing companies expect severe supply chain disruptions every 3.7 years. “Yet when resilience can mean many things to different industries, how should leaders prioritize?”

Transparent supply chains a priority

Lueckel says to reap the benefits of resilience, such as improved flexibility, responsiveness and agility, companies must first make their supply chains transparent and diversified. In fact, transparency is important as organizations can tackle risks only if they can see it clearly. “Effective risk management requires greater visibility into all the interactions and movements taking place within their networks.” However, supply chains too have their rough spots with vendors not divulging information making tracking difficult. Moreover, most companies map only their direct suppliers, not keeping track of the intermediaries in the middle. This could result in expensive repercussions.

Lueckel explains the next step is diversification. Here, companies with broad supply chains will be ahead of competition during a natural disaster or geopolitical shift. However, geographic concentration can increase risks. Meanwhile concerns about domestic supplies of essential goods and continuing US-China tensions are forcing many US companies to reshore of their activities. In an uncertain world, companies need options.

Ways to tackle procurement

In uncertain times, companies are looking at ways to assess risks and come up with ideal supplier mix. However, this will need complete overhaul of how sourcing is done. New tools need to be adopted as procurement needs advanced digital solutions. Artificial intelligence can give a boost to procurement’s data capabilities. AI offers end-to-end market visibility, which helps companies plan and respond in the best possible way to emerging risks.

AI also offers information advantage – not only for new supply needs, but also to qualify data in existing ERP systems, to identify alternative vendors for existing setup suppliers, provide additional data points for negotiations. It can extract data from publicly available sources to fill-in or verify existing supplier maps. Monitoring real-time inventory movements can enable organizations to quickly scale orders up or down and avoid the kinds of replenishment issues that plagued manufacturers at the onset of COVID-19.

AI also gives access to the entire global market, identifying competitive options in untapped supply markets or those visible in different languages. Indeed, while globalization will not go anywhere, new technologies will make it easier to track and remain competitive in an increasingly changing world.

To support 20,000 weavers’ families, Kodakandla, in Warangal district, Telangana state government plans to set up a mini textile park at Kodakandla in Warangal. Kodakandla has been selected for easy availability of workforce. Warangal already has another big textile park promoted by the state government.

“Scores of skilled weavers are available in the area and they migrated to other sStates due to absence of employment opportunities,” said the state’s industries minister K T Rama Rao1. He also assured the ongoing welfare schemes for weavers would continue uninterrupted. It is important to mention here that the state government is running some beneficial schemes for the weavers like the Cheyutha scheme, which helped weavers overcome the difficulties during the COVID-19 pandemic and the relaxations to the tune of Rs 95 crore extended under the scheme assisted nearly 25,000 families.

For, Next holiday sales have been good, however, the new lockdowns have dented its business to some extent, but the retailer is now eagerly looking forward to rebound from July. Next showed a lot of optimism at a time when the retail world continues to be shaken by the pandemic.

“Traditionally this is the quietest period of the year and will continue for some time. However, it will improve in April and is likely to return to normal business from July onwards,” says Simon Wolfson, CEO, Next, “we are better prepared this time to face lockdowns and consequent challenges than it was earlier,” he added.

Meanwhile, Next has said it hopes to see a pretax profit of $503 million for its fiscal year before two one-off charges.

Macy’s is looking to close 45 company owned stores. The selected sites may close by the middle of 2021 and liquidation sales were already underway at some locations. Before the pandemic itself, Macy’s had a three-year Polaris plan that called for significant closures, predominantly in Tier C and D malls. The coronavirus pandemic swept the nation, but still Macy’s kept all doors open throughout 2020.

Following the pandemic, some parts of the Polaris plan were put on hold, The retailer had also tested the idea of “dark stores” to fulfill digital orders in October for the holiday season at two locations Littleton, Colo.’s Southwest Plaza and Dover Mall in Dover, Del.

Retailers typically conduct those reviews in the fourth quarter to see how the stores perform during the holidays. The company was reevaluating store closing plan, noting that decisions will depend on projected sales and a store’s four-wall profitability. As practice Store closure announcements usually follow in January.

With pressure on clothing retailers worldwide to stop remove Xinjiang cotton from their supply chains, British clothing brand Marks & Spencer has signed the call to action over Uighur forced labour. The call to action comes from a coalition of civil society organisations and labour unions who want to end abuses against Uighur people. It may be recalled that in December, BBC had revealed new evidence that China is forcing thousands of Uighurs and other minorities into hard, manual labour in the cotton fields of Xinjiang.

M&S uses around 40,000 tonnes of lint cotton annually from various sources. The coalition asks any brand sourcing apparel, textiles, yarn or cotton from the region is profiting from human rights violations, including forced labour. M&S sources cotton through businesses accredited with the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI).

In March last year, BCI suspended activities in Xinjiang, hence, no new licensed BCI cotton is sourced from the region. Nevertheless, M&S felt it was important to sign the call to action to encourage other companies to examine their supply chain.

Anti-Slavery International welcomed the move and encouraged other retailers to follow suit. "The Call to Action sets out a clear path of action for brands to follow in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and we call upon other major brands to follow suit with M&S and commit to the Call to Action urgently," the organisation's chief executive Jasmine O'Connor said in a statement.

Iran exported garments worth over $40 million in the first seven months of current Iranian calendar year (March 20-October 21, 2020), the chairman of Iran Textile Exporters and Manufacturers Association (ITEMA) announced. Majid Nami said exit of foreign clothing brands country in the past two years, as well as the government's decision to ban clothing import, has thrown up a huge opportunity for Iranian producers.

Nami has previously announced garment production in Iran increased 70 per cent during the first eight months of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20-November 20, 2020), compared to the same period last past year. Garment production fluctuated from the beginning of this year but production situation has been satisfactory for producers. The share of Iranian brands in the market has increased significantly compared to the last year, Nami underscored.

Iranian garments are exported to Iraq, Kuwait, Australia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Germany, Korea, Japan, UAE, UK, Venezuela, Ivory Coast, Italy, Turkey, Canada, Qatar, Oman, Nigeria, Switzerland, Pakistan, Georgia, Spain, and Denmark. Chairman of Tehran’s Union of Garments Manufacturers and Sellers says, domestic units are supplying 70-80 per cent of the requirement for clothing inside the country.