COVID-19 is revolutionizing GCC retail landscape with consumers increasingly embracing online retail channels, opined Hozefa Saylawala, Director-Sales Middle East, Zebra Technologies at a virtual roundtable organized by RetailME on Intelligent Orchestration of Retail Experience. As per Statista, an online tracker of global economy and retail sector, e-retail sales are expected to account for 22 per cent of global retail sales by 2023. Of this, the GCC e-commerce market is expected to reach $19.7 billion in 2020. Justina Eitzinger, Chief Operating Officer, RetailME views these statistics as an indication of the huge potential of e-commerce market in the GCC and the greater Middle East region and advises retailers and consumers to gain crucial insights from the virtual roundtable series to remain ahead of the curve.

A blessing by default

Adel Sajan, Director, Danube Group, which initiated virtual meetings with key customers and offered products through a virtual tour of its stores, says their online sales jumped up 500 per cent to make up 25 per cent of total sales during the lockdown. Recently, the group launched a pilot project to dispatch a wide variety of home furnishing products to clients' homes. This enables customers to see, touch and feel the products.

Bhavna Buttan, Vice President-Market Place Transformation, Sun and Sand Sports views COVID-19 as a blessing by default as it forced consumers and retailers to change their shopping behavior swiftly. The retailer accelerated the use of digital space during the period with online sales jumping 500 per cent. According to Ashutosh Chakradeo, Head-Retail, Choithrams, the biggest change is being witnessed by grocery retail, supermarkets and hypermarkets as their online sales have jumped almost three times. Choithrams managed to meet the growing demand for its products by making certain physical adjustments and upgrading technologies.

AI for a frictionless shopping experience

Mark Thomson, Director - Retail and Hospitality, EMEA, Zebra Technologies, views frictionless shopping experience to be one of the biggest challenges for the retailers currently. As a solution, Danube Group deploys artificial intelligence (AI) to interpret customer data analytics. This enables the group to zero-in products to suit customers' taste.

Though retailers are using customer data analytics to make decisions, they interpret them in different ways, observes Hozefa Saylawala, Director of Sales, Zebra Technologies. The industry can address this issue by providing decision-makers with automated action points. For instance, Zebra's retail technology solutions help the company track inventory and orders, and offer customers a better shopping experience

Liz Truss, International Trade Secretary, UK along with Graciela Márquez, Chairperson, Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) opened discussions between senior UK trade officials and chief negotiators from all 11 members of the partnership to discuss potential UK accession to CPTPP.

This is the first time the United Kingdom has met with these chief negotiators and the first time CPTPP members have had such a discussion with a country seeking membership since the partnership was created in 2018.

The United Kingdom held preparatory conversations with all CPTPP members. If the UK decides to apply, it will enter into a formal accession negotiation with all member states, a government press release said. This meeting follows major progress in negotiations between the United Kingdom and Japan, the beginning of negotiations with Australia and New Zealand, and the resumption of negotiations with Canada, as the United Kingdom looks to focus on trade with the dynamic Asia-Pacific region. CPTPP membership also provides an opportunity to expand trade links with key partners in the Americas.

The UK aims to join CPTPP because membership will help put the United Kingdom at the centre of a network of free trade deals with dynamic economies, making the country a hub for international businesses trading with the rest of the world; put it in a stronger position to reshape global rules and drive reform at the World Trade Organisation; boost its economic security; and make it more resilient to future crises by diversifying its trade and supply chains.

Fashion for Good has launched ‘Full Circle Textiles Project: Scaling Innovations in Cellulosic Recycling’ – a first-of-its-kind consortium project. Focusing on cellulosic fibers, the project aims to validate and eventually scale promising technologies in chemical recycling from a select group of innovators to tackle landfill and other issues.

In the project, leading global organizations—Laudes Foundation, Birla Cellulose, Kering, PVH Corp, and Target—join Fashion for Good to explore the disruptive solutions, with the goal of creating new fibers and garments from used clothing and ultimately drive industry-wide adoption. The project’s overall aim is to investigate economically viable and scalable solutions for cellulosic chemical recycling to enable a closed loop system converting textile waste – of cotton and cotton-blend materials, to produce new man-made cellulosic fibers (MMCF).

Over an 18-month period, project partners will collaborate with innovators, Evrnu, InfinitedFiber Company, Phoenxt, Renewcell and TytonBioSciences, to validate the potential of their technologies in this still nascent market. The recycled content produced by four of these innovators will be converted at Birla Cellulose’s state-of-the-art pilot plants to produce high quality cellulosic fibres. From there, fibers will move through the project partners' supply chains to be manufactured into garments. Given that InfinitedFiber Company produces industry-ready fiber through their process, their fiber will be delivered directly to the project partner’s supply chains for garment production. The project will provide an assessment of the innovator’s environmental impact, technologies, recycled output and subsequent garments.

Strengthening cooperation with India will help Vietnam’s garment and textile industry enhance competitiveness and boost exports, said delegates at the virtual seminar themed: ‘Promoting Vietnam-India business relations in the areas of garments, textiles and health’. Organized by the Vietnamese Embassy in India on September 10, the seminar was attended by 250 enterprises, scholars and policymakers from the two countries in the three aforementioned fields.

Pham Sanh Chau, Vietnamese Ambassador to India emphasized on the significant changes in the world’s geo-political picture with rivalry and competition between major powers, and tensions and disputes in the area of security affecting economic issues. In addition, supply chains are facing multiple challenges due to the disease, thus hurting global trade. However, this can be an opportunity for India and Vietnam to promote bilateral relations and complement each other, thereby contributing to the recovery and enhancement of supply chains in important fields, he said.

Delegates lauded Vietnam’s economic achievements in recent years with an average annual growth rate of 6-7 per cent. Vietnam is also a popular destination for foreign direct investment (FDI) with its signing of more than 10 free trade agreements (FTAs).

Ashok Juneja, President, Textile Association (India) said, garments and textiles are a key export sector of Vietnam with revenue of up to $36 billion, equaling India’s $38 billion in value terms. However, India exports $16 billion of garment and $22 billion of textile products, while Vietnam exports up to $31 billion of garments and only $5billion of textile items. Therefore, the two countries have ample space to boost cooperation in this area. Juneja added, India can boost Vietnam textile and garment industry by exporting natural fibers such as cotton, jute, silk and wool, to synthetic fibers such as polyster and nylon.

To compensate for the shortage of export orders, Vietnamese textile and garment companies are trying to expand into the EU market. Vietnam’s textile exports turnover declined 11.6 per cent during the first eight months of 2020. It is expected to further decline by 15 per cent until the end of the year, says Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAS). The textile industry currently has up to 118.7 per cent of goods in inventory as 20 per cent companies were forced to shut down while others cut labor and restructure production activities.

As many global fashion brands like New York & Company, J C Penney and Brook Brothers declared bankruptcy, Vietnamese textile manufacturers turned towards the domestic market, with main products including masks, work wear, medical outfits and fast fashion, targeting the cheap or mid-range segment. Though domestic consumption is expected to increase 5 per cent until the end of 2020, it cannot make up for the shortage of export orders, said Le Tein Truong, General Director, Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex). According to him, the Vietnam-Europe Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) will allow companies to reach an export turnover of $7 billion which was that of 2019.

Having competitive pricing and fast delivery times will enable Vietnam to take full advantage of EVFTA and increase market share in the EU as well as compete with the Bangladeshi providers, Truong said. Businesses ought to improve logistical capacity to achieve shorter delivery time, and the government should simplify administrative procedures, reduce clearance and inspection time, he added.

Manufacturers should also start importing materials from countries that have signed FTAs with Vietnam and the EU to take advantage of cumulative rules of origin. Additionally, they should dabble in specialized, hi-tech, multi-detailed textile products or workwear, sports and medical products, while changing production technology, improving management capacity and investing in social and environmental factors.

Gap has released its ‘Preferred Fiber Toolkit’ put together in partnership with Textile Exchange. The toolkit is an online resource that details the environmental and social impacts of various raw materials, to inform likeminded companies striving to meet their sustainability targets. Serving as a complement to the Sustainable Apparel Coalition’s (SAC) Product Tools, the toolkit will not only disclose the associated environmental effects of raw materials but also other factors for consideration such as the subsequent impacts on labourers, biodiversity and land-use.

With this toolkit, users can flick through a database of raw materials and their associated impacts on not just the environment, but also workers, land, biodiversity and animal welfare. It will provide clear direction to create alignment and reduce the proliferation of conflicting guidance.

Textile Exchange (TE) will update the Toolkit with new data and a broader set of fibers and materials, before starting to use the tool to drive the adoption of ‘preferred’ materials.

Textile Exchange will also work to identify areas of further reduction of impacts to support the industry in meeting science-based targets. The updated Toolkit and the proposed review process will be shared with stakeholders for comments and feedback later this year.

Consumption of apparels in one of the biggest consumer market – the US -- has shrunk by 50 per cent. Nate Herman, Senior Vice-President –Policy, American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) informs, retail sales declined 83.9 per cent in April, 62.3 per cent in May and 24.3 per cent in June. Fashion consumption is headed for a 50 per cent decline to around $200bn, except trade recovers sharply during the coming winter and Christmas holidays.

US’ worsening relationship with China is hitting American apparel brands and retailers as they import the majority of their readymade garments (RMG) from China. AAFA executives say China has failed to ramp up purchases of US cotton and textiles to roughly $1billion a year from to $600 million before the January deal. Other hot-points like intellectual property (IP) theft are distancing the two countries greatly. Many Chinese companies have been able to register a trademark that is a near copy of a US rival brand and have been continuously doing over the previous six months, in spite of Beijing’s pledges that it would stop these activities.

The recent development of sanctions against China’s Xianjing Production and Construction Corporation (XPCC) over serious right abuses in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) by the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has boosted claims of rights abuses against the Uyghur ethnic communities by China’s apparel industry.

There are rising calls for limiting import of apparels that include cotton and yarn from Xianjing, adds Herman, noting that this could dent apparel makers’ capability to make cheap goods.

The Sri Lankan government aims to increase garment production in rural areas in the next five years. The plans are to launch a program that will recruit 10,000 people for producing handloom textiles. It also plans to set up 200 villages and provide equipment for this purpose. Sri Lanka will also restrict its textile and readymade garment imports, and raise import tax on textiles. The government plans to revise the Rs 100 per kilo tax imposed on imported cloth and increase it to Rs 185 ($1).

Another plan is to modernize small handloom textile schools and encourage students to turn entrepreneurs. The government also aims to stop import of readymade garments to Sri Lanka in future and to manufacture more in the country. It plans to hoist a national flag made in Sri Lanka in every home on February 4, 2021, and use Buddhist flags made from local raw materials for the Vesak festival.

Disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic enables Bangladesh to reinforce its position as a leading apparel exporter, said experts at a virtual discussion organized by HSBC, Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and Serai, a new technology subsidiary of HSBC on September 09.

Experts says Bangladeshi manufacturers can innovate new ways of production in order to expand their business and adapt to market shifts. Attended by garment makers and exporters, HSBC customers, regulators, international buyers and officials took part, the discussion focused on Bangladesh's apparel industry, global apparel demand landscape and technological penetration under the current context. It brought together industry leaders from across the apparel ecosystem to discuss how demand is changing, why Bangladesh is such a unique destination and how the industry can thrive in this new environment. The program began with short speeches and a discussion between Mahbub ur Rahman, CEO and Managing Director, HSBC; Rubana Huq, President, BGMEA and Vivek Ramachandran, CEO, Serai.

It also included presentations by Kanaiya Parekh, expert partner in retail, performance improvement, customer strategy & marketing and results delivery practices at Bain and Company, and Ramachandran

The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), along with other industry bodies have urged the government to remove anti-dumping duty on viscose staple fiber (VSF) imports to enable the sector to achieve global competitiveness. Noting that the Ministry of Textiles has set a target of $350 billion market size for the growth of the Indian textiles and clothing (T&C) industry by 2025, CITI said this cannot be achieved until the country boosts its textile exports, especially those of man-made fiber (MMF) sector.

The industry has been facing stagnation for many years, mainly due to the lack of availability of basic raw materials of MMF/filament yarn at internationally competitive prices. Hence, various segments of VSF value chain, viz the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC), the Bhiwandi Powerloom Weavers Federation (BPWF), the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI), the Clothing Manufacturers Association of India (CMAI) etc. have urged the government to remove anti-dumping duty on import of viscose staple fiber.

They say despite being the second largest producer of MMF in the world, India has only 20 per cent share in total T&C exports while China's share of MMF products stands at 80 per cent. The Indian textile industry is not in a position to fully capture the market opportunities compared to Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc, mainly due to the expensive price of VSF which is the second most important basic raw material for the MMF textile value chain.