The Cotton Textiles and Export Promotion Council (Texprocil), plans to launch an initiative to have a standard-neutral, converged assessment framework for the textile and clothing industry. The initiative, ‘Social and Labor Convergence Programme (SLCP),’ is led by world’s leading manufacturers, brands, retailers, industry groups, non-governmental organisations and service providers. The objective of this initiative is to improve the working conditions in textile units by allowing resources previously designated for compliance audits to be redirected towards the improvement of social and labor conditions.

The SCLP is not a code of conduct or compliance programme. The converged assessment framework is a tool developed by the SLCP, which provides a data set with no value judgment or scoring. It is, however, compatible with existing audit systems and codes of conduct. The same data set can be used by a wide-range of stakeholders. It eliminates the need for repetitive audits to be carried out on the same facility.

For exporting units, it will reduce the number of social audits and facilitate measuring of employment practices, thus improving working conditions and employee relations. It also redeploys resources towards improvement actions and fosters collaboration between supply chain partners. The SLCP would be holding free seminars at Mumbai, Bengaluru, Tiruppur, and New Delhi and will launch operations in India, China, Sri Lanka and Taiwan this month.

Indian apparel manufacturers are proving to be great suppliers and they are winning awards. The sweater division of Orient Craft, Gurgaon, got the best supplier award for the year 2018 from Argos (Sainsbury’s). The event took place in Hong Kong and there were around 50 to 60 apparel vendors from across the globe. Similarly, Aditya Birla, Matrix Clothing and Richa Global won Superdry awards. This event took place in the UK, where around 100 plus vendors from across the globe were present. Aditya Birla was honored as a global vendor while Matrix Clothing and Richa Global were honored as key suppliers and part of the millionaire club. In India, Superdry has around 16 vendors for apparels. Superdry has entered the fitness market with Superdry Sport. From technical gear to workout essentials, the brand has everything from active wear, athleisure to sportswear.

In the last few days, many international brands and retailers have had their annual supplier conferences. These supplier conferences or meets are instrumental in strengthening mutual relations between global brands, retailers and their suppliers. Awards for suppliers not only recognise their best practices but also motivate them to improve their overall services. Quality, timely delivery, compliance and sustainability are some of the major parameters considered by brands before awarding suppliers.

Sanjay K Jain, Chairman, CITI has advised the Indian government to be cautious about the textile industry in the RCEP pact. He noted the pact, likely to be concluded by the end of 2019, contributes approximately 39 per cent of the global GDP. The total T&C exports of RCEP member countries’ was $413 billion and accounted for 49.44 per cent share of the world exports in 2018. India’s share in the total export of T&C among RCEP nation’s remained at 9 per cent (approx.) during the same period.

India had a trade deficit of almost $1 billion with China in T&C in 2018. The ongoing US-China trade war presents an opportunity to the Indian textile manufacturers to enhance exports to the US, while the RCEP trade scenario reveals India must tread cautiously, particularly with China, as half of India’s T&C trade in RCEP is with China, with which it had a big trade deficit of almost $1 billion in 2018.

As China would be looking for new markets for its products, India needs to be over cautious while negotiating with China. India’s trade deficit with China in T&C sector is likely to widen once RCEP is concluded and could be detrimental for India’s domestic textile manufacturers.

India is wary of Chinese presence in the proposed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). India does not want to cede space to China in the global textile and clothing sector. While the ongoing US-China trade war presents an opportunity to Indian textile manufacturers to enhance their exports to the US, India must tread cautiously, particularly with China, as half of India’s textile and clothing trade in the RCEP is with China.

China is already re-routing its textiles into India through Bangladesh, Sri Lanka etc. India’s trade deficit with China in the textile and clothing sector is likely to be widened once RCEP is concluded and could be detrimental for its domestic textile manufacturers.

RCEP comprises 10 Asean members and their six free trade partners - India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand. Asean members comprise Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Laos and Vietnam. The RCEP negotiations aims at covering goods, services, investments, economic and technical cooperation, competition and intellectual property rights. Member countries are looking to conclude the talks by the end of this year, but many issues, including the number of products over which duties will be eliminated, are yet to be finalised.

The global denim fabric market presents huge opportunities for Bangladesh. Last fiscal year, Bangladesh exported denim goods worth $3 billion. Globally, the denim fabric market has been mainly driven by growing demand for clothing, household items and other fields. With the fashion effect of denim, downstream application industries will need more denim fabrics. So denim fabric has huge market potential for Bangladesh. Denim fabric is used for many purposes such as traditional trousers and shirt making. Denim fabric is used for almost all fashions, both for male and female customers. With the change of fashion worldwide, denim fabrics are used for making jackets as well.

Envoy Textiles in Bangladesh produces 4.5 million yards of fabrics a month. Two years ago, it used to produce three million yards and increased output to cope with the demand. Like Envoy Textiles, many other domestic producers have also increased their production capacity. So there are many suppliers in the market and prices are going down. At present, Bangladesh has 30 denim mills with a capacity to produce 150 million yards of fabrics a month. Global denim sales are growing by 4.7 per cent. Global denim fabric sales are growing by 3.2 per cent.

India is considering boosting exports by introducing fast refunds of central and state taxes and levies. The new scheme would ensure refund of all unrebated central and state levies and taxes imposed on inputs that are consumed in exports of all sectors. State VAT/central excise duty on fuel used in transportation, captive power, farm sector; mandi tax; duty of electricity; stamp duty on export documents, purchases from unregistered dealers; embedded CGST and compensation cess coal used in the production of electricity are some of the major levies. The total compensation under the remission of state levies scheme and a new scheme to reimburse against embedded central taxes (even after the GST rollout) will be raised to 6.05 per cent (of freight-on-board value) for garments and 8.2 per cent for made-ups from the current 1.7 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively.

So far the Merchandise Exports for India Scheme (MEIS) was the most important export promotion scheme under which exporters were provided duty credit scrip at two per cent, three per cent or five per cent of their export turnover, depending on products and shipment destinations. But the MEIS is being opposed by the US, which alleges that the MEIS is not in sync with global trade norms.

Textile traders in Surat have placed a new set of demands before the state government. The demands include developing a garment hub near the south Gujarat city as well as redressal of issues related to the goods and services tax (GST). The garment hub would organise the industry and make it competitive not only within the country but also in international markets. Another point that the government needs to consider is GST. The current GST on yarn is 12 per cent. This should be reduced to 5 per cent.

The implementation of GST has badly impacted textile production in India which has plummeted from 4 crore metre per day to 2.5-3 crore. The government should remove GST on units whose turnover is below Rs 5 crore. Another hurdle the textile industry is facing is the limit on cash transactions. Currently, the limit is Rs 10,000 per day which should be at least Rs 25,000, so that traders can manage their expenses in proper manner and also get rid of unnecessary accountancy-related procedures.

Global retail behemoths are offering Ramadan collections. Dolce & Gabbana has launched a collection of abayas, or loose robes, and hijabs. Others like Burberry and Uniqlo are also entering the modest fashion market. H&M made its movement in modest fashion by selecting Mariah Idriss as a first hijab-wearing model. The fashion chain Mango promoted Ramadan collections. Designers such as Oscar de la Renta and Tommy Hilfiger are testing the market. Nike released an unprecedented Pro-Hijab marketing campaign in the beginning of 2017 that not only raised awareness of Muslim women athletes but also marked Nike’s shift toward the Middle East for its market expansion. Brands are showing less fear of association with something Islamic and producing more market-right products. In February, London hosted its first-ever Modest Fashion Week, featuring more than 40 labels showcasing styles that ranged from maxi dresses to hijabs.

Ramadan is the holiest month of Islam when Muslims throughout the world fast for 30 days from dawn to evening. The retail spikes begin as early as two weeks before the holy month, which last year saw a 29 per cent increase in southeast Asia and a 36 per cent increase in the Middle East in comparison to non-Ramadan times of the year.

On its current trajectory, Asia and the Pacific will not achieve any of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030. Though the region has made progress towards ending poverty and ensuring all have access to quality education and lifelong learning and measures are also underway to achieve affordable and clean energy, for more than half the SDGs, progress has stagnated or heading in the wrong direction. The situation is deteriorating when it comes to providing clean water and sanitation, ensuring decent work and economic growth and supporting responsible consumption and production. Many SDG targets related to the environment and natural resources are registering negative trends. Hazardous waste generation, the reduction in forest areas and the permanent water body extent are the three SDG indicators which are predicted to regress the most by 2030.

There are major differences in progress between the sub regions of Asia and the Pacific which have recorded different successes and face different challenges. Each sub region needs to reverse existing trends for at least three goals. For example, East and North-East Asia is regressing in sustainable cities and communities, climate action and life on land. South-East Asia has moved backwards on peace, justice and strong institutions.

Kenya’s Kisumu National Polytechnic will build centres of excellence across the region to offer skills and competencies to support the cotton sector’s growth and sustainability. The company has received Sh1.2 billion funding from the World Bank to these centres for value addition in the cotton industry in the Nyanza region. The project is expected to start next month. The first centre will start at Nyakongo Technical Training in Rarieda sub-county.

These centres will focus on different levels of value addition chain, from production of high quality seeds to fashion industry, said principal secretary in the state department for vocational and technical training.