The 17th annual ranking of Forbes Global 2000 for 2019 has ranked Christian Dior the planet’s largest apparel company. The company is ranked on the 143rd position in the overall list and is listed as the number one company in apparel industry. Sales rose by double digits to $55 billion in 2018. It posted a 16 per cent increase for the first quarter of 2019 compared with the same period last year, with total revenues for the quarter totaling over $14 billion. The fashion house benefits from a 41 per cent stake in its parent company, LVMH, which owns 70 luxury brands including Louis Vuitton, Dom Pérignon and Sephora.

According to The Forbes Global 2000, the second-largest apparel company is Nike whose return to growth and its buzzy Colin Kaepernick ad campaign helped fuel the stock, which increased by 19 per cent in 2018. The Forbes Global 2000 is a useful indicator of which are the leading public companies in the world. The ranking is based on a mix of four metrics: sales, profit, assets and market value. Of the 61 countries represented on the list, the United States is home to the largest number, 575 companies. China and Hong Kong were next with 309, followed by Japan with 223. The breakdown looks very different than it did when Forbes first published the Global 2000 in 2003. That year, the United States contributed 776 companies while China and Hong Kong had just 43.

Swedish textile machinery manufacturers focus on customer service, aligned with the drive to constantly innovate. They are doing well in major markets such as Europe, China, India and the US. They are displaying an even higher degree of real time monitoring of processes, automation, flexible customisation, and the incorporation of robots into production lines.

Gruppen has a new robotic pillow filling system. This has the ability to fill and finish some 3,840 pillows per eight-hour shift, which is a considerable improvement on what is currently possible with existing systems, resulting in significant savings in both labor and energy for busy home textile businesses. Eton has concepts for fully automated work flows in finished garments and textile-based products. Eton has a complete material handling solution with advanced software providing real-time information covering every aspect of the process. Eltex is achieving considerable success with its yarn fault detection and tension monitoring systems across a range of sectors, including the tufting of carpets, the creeling of woven materials and even the production of woven reinforcements for the composites industry. Unlike scanning inspection systems, Eltex monitors each individual yarn position in real time. As a consequence, it has concentrated on the further miniaturisation of its sensors.

Strong foreign direct investment flows from China and Hong Kong into Vietnam are a possible sign of regional supply chain reshuffling. In the first four months of this year, FDI from China and Hong Kong has outstripped investment from all other major investors year-to-date, as well as the same period last year.

China’s investments in Vietnam include sectors such as energy, construction, manufacturing, and property. Nearly 40 companies explicitly stated plans to shift production from China to Vietnam since January 2017.

Trade tensions between the United States and China may have prompted supply chain shifts to Vietnam. Supply chain shifts so far have mainly taken the form of using or expanding existing facilities and adding capacity, instead of greenfield investment or acquisitions. There has been greater interest from US companies in outsourcing to Vietnam, especially in sectors such as apparel and furniture. It’s unclear though whether the cushion from supply chain shifts will be sufficient to offset the negative impact from the trade war or a weak semiconductor recovery. Vietnam also has low domestic value-added in exports, with limited spillovers from FDI. Also, Vietnam might be most at risk of being labeled a currency manipulator by the US as a pretext for trade tariffs.

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.