Maharashtra has imposed stringent curbs on fashion and e-commerce for 15 days to slow rising coronavirus infections. Maharashtra accounts for about a quarter of India's 13.5 million COVID-19 cases. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray ordered most establishments and public places to close in the state except those which are deemed essential, including grocery shops, hospitals, banks and stock exchanges.

The curbs are likely to hit auto companies like Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Mahindra & Mahindra which operate factories in the state. E-commerce deliveries will be allowed but only for essential products, the government said, a decision that will affect deliveries and online ordering on companies like Amazon.com Inc and Walmart's Flipkart.

The restrictions will jolt businesses in Maharashtra but also risk having a broader impact on the Indian economy. The state accounts for nearly 15 per cent of India's gross domestic product, making it crucial for the country's economic recovery after months of slowdown.

Maharashtra had already shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, theatres and non-essential stores last week, a move some industry groups had warned will cause economic losses of billions of dollars.

Lenzing is launching a certification and licensing service for the Veocel™ brand to elevate supply chain transparency for nonwoven fibers. The Lenzing e-branding Service provides the Veocel™ brand’s partners with a platform to showcase their use of sustainable, high-quality and ethically sourced materials.

The Lenzing e-branding service allowing producers, retailers and brand owners from hygiene, beauty and home care industry, to certify their use of Veocel™ branded fibers and develop co-branding campaigns that improve the value of their products.

First launched in 2018 for the textile industry, the Lenzing E-Branding Service unifies registration, application and approval in a state-of-the-art online system designed to eliminate the use of paper and reduce response times, with the aim to enhance efficiency by digitizing workflow. The system’s early success and positive feedback made the expansion to the VEOCEL™ brand a natural next step for the industry-leading platform.

As a digital hub for Veocel™ brand partners, the platform includes features to apply for new licenses, monitor application status, and manage existing licenses. Simultaneously, the platform will act as a support portal, showcasing the latest branding guidelines and support for Veocel™ brand certified products.

Indonesian garment companies collaborated with South African micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to establish a textile joint venture company, Pan Africa. Pan Africa is a joint venture between Indonesia's leading garment company, Pan Brothers Tbk and South African MSME, Faithfulness. The company will import semi-finished personal protective equipment (PPE) garments from Indonesia and then finalize the processing at the Johannesburg factory.

At its inauguration ceremony, Indonesia’s ambassador to South Aricca, Al Farisi lauded the company as an ideal arrangement of mutually beneficial partnership. Anggun Paramita Mahidi, Head, Indonesia Trade Promotion Center in Johannesburg, emphasized that the success of the establishment of this company can serve as a precedent and pilot project for other Indonesian products, especially PPE, to enter and be accepted by the South African market.

Anne Patricia Sutanto, Deputy Managing Director, Pan Brothers Indonesia, said, the opening of the Pan Africa factory would be the start of deeper future cooperation.

H&M has introduced a new brand concept known as ‘Innovation Stories’. The concept includes launch of multiple collections in 2021. Each collection will emphasize on the importance of adopting forward-thinking sustainability processes, says the brand.

The first collection, Science Story, pays tribute to innovators of future fabrications. The collection introduces new materials such as EVO by Fulgar, a bio-based yarn derived from castor oil, and Desserto, which is a plant-based alternative to leather, produced from cactus plants. It includes key womenswear pieces like a wide-leg bright white jeans with removable double waistband, a lightly cropped chalk-white shirt with oversized breast-pocket and a cuffed tracksuit.

In its 2020 Sustainability Performance Report, H&M had announced its intention to use 30 per cent recycled materials by 2025. Currently, the brand uses 64.5 per cent recycled materials.

To overcome the challenge of high yarn price, Gujarat Spinners Association assured AEPC of supplying yarn to apparel manufacturers in Tirupur. Saurin Parikh, President, Gujarat Spinners Association, said in the last 20-25 days prices had reduced, many countries, excluding Bangladesh, stopped importing from India.

Currently, Tirupur is largest consumer of yarn in India with 40 per cent consumers. AEPC invited Gujarat spinners to tap the prospect in Tirupur and join hands with knitwear exporters of this apparel hub for joint sustainable growth. For last few days, there has been lot of hue and cry in Tirupur as mills and traders had increased yarn prices in April also, while it was decided in a meeting that there will be no hike in yarn price during the April month.

Bangladesh apparel exports to the US surged to $194.08 million SME of garments in February 2021 against $89.73 SME of garments in the same period of last year. As per Apparel Resources, the value of US’ apparel imports from Bangladesh fell by 8.70 percent in February ’21 on a Y-o-Y basis. The country imported $ 5.39 billion worth of garments in February this year as against the $ 5.91 billion in the same month of 2020.

However, the import increased in volume terms by 3.20 percent to 2,069.78 million SME of garments during the month. Other exporters such as Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc also noted growth in volume-wise apparel shipment to the US, while China and Pakistan upped their shipment in value and volume both terms.

Apparel exports by India, Vietnam and Indonesia to the US declined in both value-wise and volume-wise whereas exports by Bangladesh grew in volume.. Bangladesh’s apparel exports declined in terms of value to $480.98 million in February’21 against $528.47 million in the same month of the previous year.

COVID-19 has led to almost 80 per cent drop in demand for traditional woollen products, says Miles Barritt, Risk and Recovery Analyst, Australian Wool Innovation. The pandemic has led to a shift in wool’s primary consumer, as well as the marketing of the fibre, Barritt says. Demand for formal wear has faded with new casual wear, athlesiure wear, commuter wear and PPE rising in demand. The GDP of European markets contracted to – 8 per cent whereas the US’s GDP remained stable.

China emerged as the organization’s primary market with consumption of 80 per cent of its wool. The other four countries importing more than one per cent of Australian wool include the Czech Republic, Italy, India and South Korea. Pandemic has also lifted the popularity of online spending to new heights. Revenues of online retailers like Amazon and Alibaba increased by 38 per cent and 37 per cent in 2020/

Barritt predicts the wool market to have bright prospects in 2020. He expects the vaccination roll out programs to help companies restart businesses and consolidate their supply chains

APTMA has rebutted claims of non-availability of cotton yarn. The association said, Pakistan produces 200,000 tons of cotton yarn monthly with consumption of 1.3 million bales per month. Out of this, only 6 million bales were produced domestically, and balance had to be imported at international prices from the US Brazil and West Africa this year and 200,000 tonne of yarn production has been kept constant.

The spinning industry consumes 100 per cent of 30,000 tonne of synthetic fibers produced in the country, 200,000 yarn is produced from cotton and synthetic fibers monthly out of which only 100,000 tonne of yarn is consumed by value added per month balance is exported in form of 60,000 tonne of Fabric and 40,000 tonne of yarn every month. Hence, there is no question of shortage of yarn or fabric in the country.

APTMA also refuted claims of its yarn rates being above international rates. It said, the export sector already has the facility to import yarn for re-export of products free of duty from anywhere in the world except India. Export Refinance is available to value-added sector at a mere 3 per cent and should have been spent on purchasing yarn and cloth, the sector would not be reaching out to government for additional support.

Currently, cotton is at 80 cents and exchange rate is 152. The combined effect is that cotton imports are 22 per cent more expensive but the yarn manufacturers had to adjust pricing in line with the lower cotton price and exchange rate, taking a hit of approx. 10 per cent on the realized value of yarn. The rupee appreciated against the dollar by 8 per cent and thereby squeezed the textile sector by reducing the amount of rupees they would have been received

American footwear, accessories and apparel group Steve Madden has acquired 49.9 per cent share in its European joint venture. The European business of the company distributes Steve Madden-branded footwear and accessories to a number of countries throughout the continent.

Founded in June 2016, the joint ventue has grown in double-digits over the last four years. This includes a 21 per cent year-over-year revenue gain in 2020. The company owns brands including its namesake Steve Madden label, Dolce Vita and Betsey Johnson. Its annual revenues decreased by 32.8 per cent year-over-year to $1.2 billion in 2020. Its annual net loss was $18.4 million, compared to net income of $141.3 million in the previous fiscal year.

By end 2020, Steve Madden had 218 company-operated retail locations, including seven internet stores, as well as 17 concessions in international markets.

In February 2021, India’s export of basic textiles comprising fibres, spun and filament yarns increased 24 per cent Y-o-Y to $822 million. As per a report by Textile Value Chain, they accounted for about 2.9 per cent of total merchandise exported from India during the month. Driven by a sharp increase in cotton exports, these exports increased by 6.8 per cent on a cumulative basis in the first 11 months of 2020-21, compared same period a year ago.

China, largest importer of spun yarns

Export of spun yarns increased by 3.4 per cent Y-o-Y to 111 million kg worth $530 million in February 2021. Compared to January 2021, these exports declined by 16 per cent. With its import value doubling over the year, China emerged as the largest importer in spun yarns, followed by Bangladesh whose imports declined by 14 per cent. Together, these two markets accounted for about 45 per cent to total yarn imports during the month.

The volume of cotton yarn exports increased to 86 million kg worth $284 million during the month. Most of this yarn was shipped to 72 countries at an average price of $3.30 a kg, up US cents 32 from previous month and US cents 38 from a year ago. China remained the top market for cotton yarn, followed by Bangladesh, Vietnam and Peru.

Polyester dominates India’s yarn exports

The exports of 100 per cent man-made fibre yarns reached 9.2 million kg in February 2021. Majority of this included polyester yarn with exports worth 3.9 million kg, viscose yarn with exports worth 2.8 million kg and acrylic yarn with 2.3 million kg exports. The value of polyester yarn exports was $8.2 million with Brazil being the largest importer followed by the US and Turkey. The value of viscose spun yarns exports was $9 million and with Turkey being the largest importer of viscose yarn, followed by Bangladesh and Belgium.

India exported blended spun yarns worth $42 million in February. This included export of 12 million kg of PC yarns and 2.8 million kg of PV yarns. Brazil was the largest importers of PC yarn from India followed by Peru while Turkey was the largest importer of PV yarns from India followed distantly by South Africa.

India’s export of all kinds of filament yarns increased to 61 million kg. It was valued at $102 million. Its export of Nylon and viscose filament declined sharply from its level a year ago while export of polyester filament yarn increased by 1 per cent Y-o-Y and those of PP filament yarns increased by 4 per cent.

Manmade fiber exports reach 34 million kg

During the month, India exported 34 million kg of manmade staple fibres. The total value of these exports was $38 million. Of this, the volume and value of Polyester staple fibre exports declined by 8 per cent. On the other hand, the volume of viscose fibre yarn exports increased by 9 per cent while their value increased by 14 per cent.

India’s export of cotton fibers declined in February 2021 though the volume of these exports increased by 71 per cent to1.11 lakh bales worth $332 million. Bangladesh emerged as the largest market for Indian cotton during the month, followed by China and Vietnam.

India’s export price realisation for cotton declined below the Cotlook A index to US cents 80.29 per pound during February. During the month, Cotlook averaged $93.60 per pound, maintaining the competiveness of Indian cotton competitive in the global market.