Though Bangladesh’s demand for yarn and fabrics has been increasing, prices are not at the satisfactory level, said Mohammad Ali Khokon, President, Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA). Some mills are running at 70 per cent capacity, while others are operating at 65 per cent and some less than 60 per cent as demand for yarn and fabrics has been increasing.

Although prices of cotton, have declined in the international markets, local spinners could not take advantage of this as the cotton they had was imported before the pandemic at 75 cents to 80 cents per pound, says Mansoor Ahmed, Secretary, BTMA. Sale of yarn and fabrics in Bangladesh export-oriented spinning and weaving mills is on the rise thanks to higher inflow of work orders from international retailers. This has put the country's primary textile sector, which incurred losses of more than Tk 20,000 crore, on the path of quick recovery although prices remain below expectations.

Faisal Samad, Vice-President, BGMEA, said inflow of work orders is also better than that of previous three months. A good number of buyers have been reissuing work orders they had previously cancelled and placing new ones as retailers in the EU and US have opened up their stores. The shipment of these new work orders will start from November.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data indicates, the country’s textile and clothing exports grew by 14.4 percent to $1.272 billion in July 2020 as compared to $1.112 billion in corresponding month of previous year. This massive increase in textile exports helped in increasing country’s overall exports to $2 billion in the month of July. The exports of knitwear increased by 20.42 percent in July while bedwear exports increased by 25.3 percent. Exports of ready-made garments also surged 18.04 percent while those of cotton cloth grew by 1.15 percent. Exports of tents, canvas and tarpaulin increased 155 percent and those of art, silk and synthetic exports increased by 14.01 percent.

However, exports of raw cotton decreased by 100 percent and exports of cotton yarn by 37.88 percent in the month of July. Exports of yarn had also declined by 47.53 percent. On the other side, Pakistan’s imports declined by 0.7 per cent to $3.69 billion in July. Oil import bill slashed by 24.94 percent due to the slowdown in economic activities. Total oil imports amounted to $752 million during July 2020 compared to $1.002 billion during the same period last year. The breakup of $752 million showed that import of petroleum products was recorded at $387 million, petroleum crude at $203 million and liquefied natural gas at $128 million and liquefied petroleum gas at $33 million.

British retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) plans to cut a further 7,000 jobs, dealing the latest blow to the country's beleaguered retail sector from the COVID-19 crisis. Last month, M&S shed 950 jobs as a part of store revamp. Its latest round of redundancies will impact central support centre, regional management and UK stores over the next three months. A significant proportion of the latest cuts would be through voluntary departures and early retirement.

The cuts add to thousands already announced by other major British retailers, including Boots, John Lewis [JLPLC.UL], Dixons Carphone and WH Smith. M&S’ group sales declined by 19.2 per cent year-on-year in the 19 weeks upto August 20 with clothing and home sales declining by 49.1 per cent. In the next eight weeks, the brand’s clothing and home sales declined further by 29.9 per cent.

After acquiring flat knitting machine manufacturer Stoll, German textile machinery maker Karl Mayer has changed its name Karl Mayer Stoll Textilmaschinenfabrik GmbH. Karl Mayer R&D GmbH will also henceforth be known as Karl Mayer Stoll R&D GmbH.

The German family-run enterprise Karl Mayer acquired Stoll on February 26, 2020. The merger of two world market leaders was officially completed on July 1, 2020. Stoll will broaden the portfolio of the global player, Karl Mayer, by competencies in the field of flat knitting. It will be continued and further developed as an independent business unit within the corporate group

One of the main aims of this acquisition is to increase the added value for more know-how protection, flexibility and rapid delivery. Components from the company’s production will be used groupwide and the manufacture of the Stoll machines in China will be integrated into Karl Mayer’s location in Changzhou.

After a sharp decline in April, readymade garment exports have started picking up especially in Ludhiana. In April, Ludhiana exported garments worth Rs 962.92 crore as compared to Rs 9,786.03 crore in April last year. However, exports rose to Rs 3,908.80 crore in May, Rs 6,083.70 crore in June and Rs 7,973.06 crore in July.

India has been witnessing a fall in exports since January but this was less than 5 per cent on a month on month basis. However, exports declined 30 per cent in March, 90 per cent in April, 63 per cent in May, 29 per cent in June and 15 per cent in July. Exporters say, it would be difficult to register positive growth this year as shipments in the first four months of the current fiscal have already declined by 51 per cent as compared to the corresponding period last year.

Besides decline in exports and working capital crunch, the industry also suffers from labor shortage and the exporters are unable to execute the orders in a time-bound manner, said Harush Dua, Managing Director, KG Exports.

Wax print textile company GTP expects the Ghana government to introduce a legislation to tackle counterfeits by next year. The company has been facing intense competition from counterfeits printed in China and other Asian nations. During the COVID-19 lockdown in Ghana, GTP's fabric sales plummeted from about 1 million yards a month, to less than 100,000. Though sales are slowly recovering and the company has introduced new designs, it fears that these too would be soon counterfeited.

GTP has several measures to protect its products. In 2015 it started working with Ghanaian company mPedigree, which uses technology to help buyers know what they purchase is authentic. The fabrics have a scratch code on them which buyers text to a number to get confirmation the fabric is from GTP.

For the past few years, Ghana’s government has been considering measures to regulate the industry and curb illegal imports, such as creating a stamp for fabrics produced in Ghana and a taskforce to look for counterfeit goods.

State-owned Cotton Corporation of India may export 1.5 million to 2 million cotton bales to Bangladesh in order to reduce India’s record surplus before the new crop begins arriving in October. It generally sells cotton to local mills and traders at market prices, after buying from farmers at government-set minimum rates. Export prices will be decided by the two governments using the Cotlook index. Industry researcher Cotlook’s benchmark is a daily average of the five cheapest cash prices in the world.

Cotton Corp plans to sell 500,000 bales to 700,000 bales of 170 kilograms each to Trading Corp of Bangladesh in the marketing year ending on Sept. 30. The rest of the quantity will be shipped in 2020-21.

India is likely to have a record closing stockpile of 10.25 million bales by September 30, according to the Cotton Association of India, as domestic consumption may drop more than 20 per cent from a year earlier to 25 million bales in 2019-20.

Cotton Corp bought 10.5 million bales this year, the highest-ever procurement. It included 2 million bales purchased during a nationwide lockdown to prevent distress selling by local growers. The company is carrying about 8.4 million bales at present and its ending reserves may not exceed 3 million bales on September 30.

Sports shoe brand Asics posted 21.5 per cent decline in sales to ¥146.89 billion in second quarter that ended on June 30. The company incurred operating loss of ¥3.87 billion compared to operating income of ¥8.58 billion in Q2 FY19. Gross profit slipped 20.7 per cent to ¥70.5 billion and ordinary loss during the quarter was ¥3.87 billion. However, the company’s digital sales increased worldwide with 151 per cent growth in North America and 139 per cent in Europe.

During the second quarter, the brand recorded 15.1 per cent decline in sales to ¥70.93 billion in its performance running category while sales of core performance sports dropped by 25.5 per cent to ¥16.18 billion. Sales of sports style shoes declined by 22.7 per cent to ¥12.60 billion while that of apparel and equipment sales decreased by 36.3 per cent to ¥12.53 billion.

The brand recorded a decline in sales in all its regions during Q2 FY20. Its sales in Japan decreased by 24 per cent to ¥47.0 billion; North America by 27.1 per cent to ¥28.41 billion; Europe by 20.5 per cent to ¥37.09 billion; Greater China by 0.7 per cent to ¥18.52 billion; and Oceanian by1.4 per cent to ¥8.58 billion.

Forever 21 has joined hands with 7-Eleven to launch a casual apparel range, featuring the US convenience chain’s famous logo and soft drinks. The 7-Eleven apparel collection comprises 16 colorful pieces, including regular Tees and hoodies, representing the convenience-store chain’s summer drinks – Slurpee and Big Gulp. It pays homage to everyone’s favorite memory of being out, but staying close to home, heading out for a quick snack run with friends, and finding comfort in the little things.

Forever 21 launched several promotions for the collection on Instagram and TikTok, including a dance challenge, poll, games, and sweepstakes. A Slurpee AR hologram in the Forever 21 app allows followers to take photos and share on social media. The Forever 21 x 7-Eleven collection is sold only online.

A report by analyst Euler Hermes Global says, the European textile and apparel (T&A) is expected to recover from its current gloom and grow by 15 per cent in 2021. The report attributes this optimism to the liquidity provided by central banks and governments to ailing companies. Also, new job-retention schemes will provide a substantial relief to the labor-intensive industry.

The report asserts even though the share of European textile and apparel industry has declined to less than 34 per cent from 40 per cent in 2009; it has acquired a more solid and competitive base focusing on higher-end items. As Eurostat reveals, between 2009 and 2017, the gross value added by each European employee increased by 25 per cent in apparel, 30 per cent in textile and 48 per cent for leather goods, footwear and accessories

However, aggregate turnover from the European textile and apparel industry will remain 7 per cent below its 2019 levels due to its dependence on international tourist flows.

Making polluters pay

The textile and apparel industry is a major consumer of water resources with estimated 73 per cent of all textile production is either incinerated or landfilled. The rise of fast fashion has contributed to the growing preference for quantity over quality among consumers. Between 2000 and 2015, average clothing utilization declined by about 35 per cent, while global volumes sold doubled to reach more than 100 billion items per year. Apparel consumption has grown by more than 25 per cent in Europe, with France and the UK seeing the strongest increases since 2000. Adding online retail sales of clothing, which are not captured in Eurostat’s dataset, makes the trend even more apparent.

To align environmental concerns with business interests, European manufacturers need to substitute primary resources with recycled materials. They can tackle the financing issues of separate collection, sorting and treatment of waste by introducing taxes based on the ‘polluter-pays’ principle .This also encourages producers to find ways to reduce their environmental impact.

Additional public support can be sought to accelerate R&D projects focusing on improving textile waste collection, treatment, re-use and recycling – technologies are much less mature than in the glass or paper industries. The industry should also create demand for recycled materials by assigning targets to companies.

E-commerce to rescue manufacturers from crisis

As Europe has comparatively stricter labor regulation, higher labor costs and a narrower labor force, European manufacturers cannot compete with foreign manufacturers. Since long, NGOs and trade associations have addressed the need to change the European consumers’ buying behavior and align it with environmental targets with the interests of local manufacturers. Even a 10 per cent reduction in apparel imports by Germany and France to boost local European production by 8 per cent.

Researchers Carl Benedict Frey and Michael Osborne say, most garment industry jobs will be computerized by 2023, with tailors standing at 83 per cent and hand sewers at 99 per cent. Automation can help reduce Europe’s comparatively high-cost structure, support funds to increase the competitiveness of European manufacturers and stimulate the robot industries of Germany and Italy. European apparel manufacturers should also accelerate their efforts to develop e-commerce capabilities. Though e-commerce may not fully compensate for store closures, it can provide large retailers with some relief amidst the COVID-19 crisis.