The demand for sweaters is rising worldwide because of changes in fashion trends as well. In fact, sweaters have turned into an all-weather fashion item.

In the past, western consumers used to don sweaters only during the winter season but now they wear lightweight sweaters all year round as a fashion item. Besides, the temperature has gone up in many cold countries because of climate change, driving down the demand for thick sweaters and pushing up the consumption of lightweight sweaters. Office goers also use them as casual dresses. For instance, consumers in the European Union and the United States prefer light sweaters to thick sweaters.

Today, Bangladesh is a major supplier of lightweight sweaters and international retailers and brands are coming up with higher orders for the items. Bangladesh’s sweater exports climbed 39 per cent year on year in the last financial year.

The segment's earnings represented 13 per cent of the total garment export value in 2021-2022. Rising temperatures, shifting of orders from China, and changes in fashion have all made Bangladesh a major manufacturer of sweaters in recent years.

What helps is that China is no longer interested in manufacturing sweaters because of the complexities in the production process, higher cost of production, and shortage of skilled workers.

Falling cotton prices in the international futures markets haven’t been reason enough for Bangladesh spinners and apparel exporters to cheer up.

They can’t take advantage of lower cotton prices for two reasons: the dollar crisis and the lower gas pressure. Production in some units has fallen by as much as 50 per cent in the last three months owing to low gas pressure. Also, rising inflation in major apparel export strongholds has resulted in a decline in demand for apparel from the end users, which is manifesting in fewer orders from global buyers. This is because of the unfavorable exchange rate, the energy crisis and the fall in demand for finished goods.

Apparel manufacturers are also receiving fewer orders from international buyers amid the slide in demand from consumers buckling under deep inflationary pains caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.Usually, millers, spinners, traders and users brim with joy when the cotton price drops even by a few cents in the international markets since Bangladesh is a net cotton-importing country. And less than two per cent of the country’s total cotton requirement is met through domestic production. Spinners in Bangladesh are sitting on piles of unsold yarn made from cotton imported earlier at a higher price.

The Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) which was set up by leading standard setters to define worldwide recognized requirements for organic textiles is now forming many new rules to increase its credible assurance and protect the integrity of the organic cotton supply chain.

The GOTS certification ensures that only textile products that contain a minimum of 70 percent organic fibers are accepted and all chemical inputs such as dyestuffs and auxiliaries used meet the required toxicological criteria. So, it is now ensuring there is no fraud within the system and it can maintain more transparent and traceable processing for its organic textiles. The focus is on retaining the high standard of the whole system of processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling and trading of textiles.

New, stricter rules for GOTS-certified gins

More stringent requirements for GOTS-certified gins have been introduced recently, adding to the already numerous checks and balances of every processing stage. India will be the first country required to comply with this new scrutiny as GOTS goes all out to keep up the required standard of organic textiles in all ways.

GOTS-certified gins will have to make three key changes to ensure better transparent and traceable processing for organic textiles. First, GOTS is now starting a compulsory farm-gin registry for all farms and farm groups whose certified raw material enters the GOTS system which will include information on farm yields. This registry will be introduced globally, starting with India as there have been questions about the credibility of inspection agencies in the country. Second, raw cotton will not be allowed to be transferred more than 500 km from the farm where it is grown to a government-certified gin as the shorter trade route will cut out chances of fraud and optimize the process for buyers. Third, GOTS will increase the number of sudden audits at cotton gins where there is a high perception of fraud risk in the organic cotton sector.

Focus on strengthening integrity in organic cotton

Meanwhile, the Textile Exchange, a global non-profit organization that is driving positive action on climate change across the fashion and textile industry has recently released a report on integrity issues. This states “Challenges in integrity are neither new nor unique to organic cotton, and they often evolve. Strengthening integrity in organic cotton aims to provide more guidance on ways the industry can act to improve integrity, recommending that brands and supply chain partners proactively adopt an integrity system that tackles fraud by building compliance through standards and certification, achieving traceability for organic content, improving incentives for supply chain partners, and reviewing, improving, and collaborating with others.’’

As per the new rules, Organic Content Standard (OCS) from December 1, 2022 will mandatorily require that site inputs from GOTS will provide traceability of all transaction certificate data back to the original farm source and will also include full transaction certificate data such as product and input product and also farm input data like farm capacity. To prevent further fraud, all first processors, which include cotton gins that ultimately provide GOTS inputs into an OCS product down supply chain needs to be certified to the OCS and provide evidence of all inputs from farms. It will soon become mandatory for all certification bodies and standards users to supply this additional data from now on. All this will help to minimize fraud and provide a better quality product to the end-consumer.

For the first nine months this year, the volume of industrial production in Uzbekistan increased by five per cent.

Small-scale production is also increasing in the country. Carpet production will be encouraged. The textile industry will be developed with new dynamics. A programme will be launched next year to export industry products worth more than $5 billion.

Raw materials will be provided to manufacturers of household appliances, carpets and furniture to assist enterprises that cannot operate at full capacity. Uzbekistan will deepen reforms in the textile industry to fully reprocess raw cotton domestically and increase the export potential of the country.

Traditionally, cotton has been Uzbekistan's most important cash crop. But in recent years the country has been taking serious steps to develop its textile industry to produce value-added products rather than exporting raw cotton. However, the European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preference Plus is not fully utilised by exporters.

The state provides 70 per cent of transportation costs for the export of fabrics and knitwear to European countries, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. But Europe still accounts for only six per cent of textiles, three per cent of electrical goods and one per cent of silk and food products exported from Uzbekistan.

Sri Lanka’s garment exports grew by 18 per cent during January 2022 to September 2022. During the same period, textile exports from the island nation increased by six per cent year-on-year. Textiles, garment, and other made-up textile articles’ exports together accounted for 57 per cent of all industrial exports from Sri Lanka during the period under review.

On the other hand, imports of textiles and textile articles rose by nine per cent while clothing and accessories imports were up by eight per cent during January 2022 to September 2022.

During the month of September 2022, garment and textile exports from the South Asian nation grew by five per cent year-on-year. Category-wise, garment exports increased by five per cent while textile exports rose by eight per cent. But exports of other made-up textile articles were down by three per cent.

Sri Lanka is attempting to finalise free trade agreements with countries like China, India, Japan and Australia. These are expected to help boost exports and strengthen the industry’s resilience.August 2022 saw a 20 per cent increase in export turnover generated by the apparel sector but at present Sri Lanka is not competing on a level playing field. Its main competitor countries like Bangladesh, Vietnam and some African nations have duty concessions in global markets, which it does not have.

American jeans imports in September 2022 increased 27 percent compared to September 2021.This was a fall off from a 31 percent year-to-date rise in the first eight months of the year.

Sell-in was adversely impacted and global revenue tempered as US retailer inventory rebalancing efforts continued. Ongoing inventory reduction actions will pressure near-term margins.

US imports of blue denim apparel continued to slide in September as a slowdown in consumer demand has caused merchants to take stock of their inventory positions. US denim imports from Bangladesh in September 2022 rose 42 percent year over year. This was down slightly from August’s 46 percent hike.Imports from second-place supplier Mexico slipped to 18 percent compared to the prior month’s 20 percent gain. Shipments from Pakistan were up 36 percent from a year earlier while imports from Vietnam rose 25 percent and shipments from Cambodia increased 47 percent. China’s jeans shipments to the US grew a meager six percent as China’s production faces competition from ongoing tariff costs and diversification strategies. US jeans imports during the same period increased 60 percent from Egypt, 25 percent from Nicaragua, 21 percent from Turkey and 24 percent from Sri Lanka.

In the third quarter of 2022, Indonesia’s textile industry grew by eight per cent year on year.

The footwear, leather and leather goods industry grew 13 per cent during this period. Cumulatively, footwear exports up to September 2022 also continued to increase by 35 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

The growth performance of this sub-sector is still quite high, due to the diversion of orders from China and Vietnam to Indonesia. So Indonesia is trying to find new markets for exports for the industrial sector and is exploring markets like Latin and South America, Africa, Middle Eastand Asia.

However the textile and textile products and the footwear industry have experienced a slowdown in performance. This has been due to decreased utilization in the fiber industry by 20 per cent, spinning (30 per cent), weaving and knitting (50 per cent), garments (50 per cent), baby clothes (20 per cent to 30 per cent), and footwear (49 per cent). Some of these companies are said to have cut their working time to three or four days.

Meanwhile, some 92,000 workers have been affected by layoffs from the textile and garment industry and some 22,000 workers from the footwear industry.

The Chinese cotton crop is expected to be larger than last year. Global export prices are not attractive in China. Higher external prices should be a headwind for Chinese cotton fiber and yarn imports.

Lower Chinese yarn imports imply lower mill demand for yarn exporters like Vietnam. In turn, Vietnam is a major importer of cotton fiber and lower Vietnamese spinning demand suggests lower fiber import demand from that important market. Lower import demand from China may eventually weigh on global export prices.

Chinese prices decreased in late October and into November.Indian spot prices (Shankar-6 quality) decreased in a comparatively uniform fashion over the past month. Pakistani prices also decreased in a relatively linear manner. The recent volatility in NY/ICE futures has been attributed to various factors, including short covering in the futures market and import interest from China.

The steep increases in early November can also be interpreted as sensitivity to potential increases in demand for US exports. US stocks are low this crop year, and US shipments will have to be rationed by prices if the appetite exists from the demand side.However there are questions whether there will be enough demand to sustain prices at higher levels.

Italian jeans brand Gas is now Gas Milano 1984. It is ready to start a new life under a new owner, a new management and a new name.

The challenge is to speed up as much as possible–from the internal reorganization to the implementation of processes. The historic values of the company will be rebuilt. Denim has always been important for Gas, and it will continue to be so. But if denim counted for 80 per cent of its offer, the aim is now to reposition and offer 60 per cent denim and 40 per cent fashion products in order to make the brand more lifestyle oriented.

The woman’s offer, which was not very strong, will be reinforced. The aim is to stay focused on the quality of the product, but along with that also on sustainability.

So the product will be based upon a select choice of fabrics, starting from denim made, for instance, with organic cotton and by choosing manufacturing companies that produce according to low consumption levels of water, no chemicals, and, for instance, use laser to treatments. Today Gas produces mostly in the Mediterranean basin and in the Far East but some product categories will be brought back to Italy. In terms of fabrics, for instance, Candiani Denim will be used.

Jeanologia has a commitment to turning Bangladesh’s textile industry into one of the most advanced and cleanest on the planet.

Jeanologia has been promoting the development of its textile industry with comprehensive technologies and innovative processes that provide greater efficiency, sustainability and competitiveness.

Laundry5.Zero is a jeans finishing plant that guarantees zero contamination. Laundry5.Zero guarantees 85 per cent savings in water use as well as zero discharges and zero contamination, thanks to the perfect integration of Jeanologia technologies. With a sustainable production capacity of between 5,000 and 25,000 garments a day, this garment finishing plant enablesa digital, automated and environmentally-friendly production model that reduces time, costs and simplifies processes.

And all without compromising the authenticity of the product while staying adapted to the new needs of the market. The aim is to eliminate the use of water from the production of jeans.

Jeanologia, based in Spain, is a leader in the development of eco-efficient technologies. Jeanologia currently has ten subsidiaries and exports its products and services to 72 countries on five continents.More than 35 per cent of the five billion jeans produced worldwide each year are made with its technologies, and it has become a trusted partner of the market’s main brands.