Seven mega textile parks will be set up under the Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel (MITRA) scheme.

The states where these parks will be set up have almost been finalized but they have been asked to provide a long-term projection for power tariffs that would be charged at these parks. The centre is trying to get a few things from the states by way of concessions and is trying to get states to agree to a better power regime. In some states, the cost of power is quite high, which the centre would like to see reduced. The states have been asked to submit a long-term roadmap— say, 15 years—of the power tariff that would be charged at these textile parks and they have been requested to refrain from raising power charges for 15 years.

The Mega Integrated Textile Region and Apparel scheme was announced in budget 2021 to make the textile industry globally competitive. It was given a budget of Rs 4,445 crores (0.55 bn) for seven years.

India’s textile and apparel exporters complain that a largely fragmented supply chain and higher logistics costs push up the cost of production—one reason export orders have steadily moved to countries such as Bangladesh and Vietnam. These mega parks are aimed at helping return textile orders as a result of a planned integrated textiles value chain—including spinning, weaving and processing —at a single location.

Textech Bangladesh International Expo 2022 was held from August 31 to September 3, 2022.

The expo focuses on international textile apparel technology and the machinery industry of Bangladesh.A total of 300 companies from 12 countries, including many from China, showcased their products.Spinning, weaving, knitting machines and yarn processing equipment, chemicals and dyes, embroidery and sewing materials among other products were on display during the event, where sector insiders got tips straight from professionals to discover ways to improve efficiency in their factories.

This edition of the show was held after two years of pandemic-induced doldrums.This annual exhibition plays the role of a bridge. It offers many things in one place, right from fabric to accessories.Conference and Exhibition Management Services, an event management company, organized the exhibition through its Bangladesh wing. Some 14,000 visitors attended the exhibition.

International suppliers of yarn, fabric, dye chemicals and machinery are eying to grab the growing apparel sector of Bangladesh by increasing their supplies.

The India ITME (International Textile Machinery Expo) awards will be presented on December 8, 2022, a part of the event to be held between Dec 8-13.

The awards recognise the significant contributions that have influenced positive change in the textile engineering sector of India. The winners will be felicitated with cash awards, trophies, and certificates depending on the award category.The awards aim at recognising talent and felicitating winners in the categories of ginning, spinning, weaving and weaving preparatory, processing and finishing, garmenting, printing, accessories for textiles and technical textiles. They also cover technology for pollution control, textile engineering and research excellence.

The ITME society has brought on board reputed leaders from different sectors of the textile industry to be part of the jury for awards selection. Members of the jury panel include Sanjay Jayavarthanavelu, chairman and managing director at Lakshmi Machine Works and a former chairman of India ITME Society; Uday Gill, group chief strategy officer for fibers, Indorama Ventures, a top textile fiber expert having a knack for identifying hidden gems from across the globe and successfully leading acquisitions; Updeep Singh, president and CEO for Sutlej Textiles and Industries, a genius in textiles and a resourceful personality in textile technology; Manohar Samuel, advisor R&D for Reliance Industries, an expert in core dynamics of fibers and a passionate researcher, brand developer, and value chain builder.

Centrestage will be held in Hong Kong, September 9 to 11, 2022. This is one of Asia’s most anticipated annual fashion events. More than 240 fashion brands and designer labels from 15 countries and regions will take part in the three-day fashion presentation, promoting a wide variety of ready-to-wear apparel and accessories.The show will see the global launch of the latest collections from designer brands Derek Chan, Demo and Children of the discordance.

This year’s Centrestage revolves around the theme of inclusion and diversity, inviting visitors to express themselves boldly through fashion and at the same time celebrate the differences among bodies, cultures and ideologies. The show will host more than 30 fashion events in these three days, including a series of brand shows and seminars. Centrestage will again be open to public and trade visitors for free throughout the entire show period, providing an ideal platform for visitors to share the joy of exploring fashion and shopping. A wide array of interactive experiences empowered by AR and VR technologies will be offered at the fairground to enrich visitors’ experience, including the brand new Centreverse, a custom-built metaverse where visitors can interact and participate in fashion events using personalised avatars.

Uster offers solutions for removing contamination from nonwovens.

Nonwovens applications such as medical, hygiene and cosmetics demand two non-negotiable rules: zero-tolerance and reliability. Contamination control is the supreme discipline in producing nonwovens for sensitive applications. The Uster contamination sorter masters this essential job with ease and security. It ensures customer satisfaction and a perfect experience for the final consumer – whether the end-product is made of natural or synthetic fibers. Drylaid nonwovens producers operate to the most stringent quality levels – with zero-tolerance standards for defects bigger than 1 mm. In this nonwovens segment, end-product quality depends absolutely on the efficiency of contamination sorting early in the process.

Bales of cotton typically contain various kinds of contamination – none of which should get into the final product, and ideally should be removed at the earliest stage of production.Eliminating contamination during fiber preparation – and before the contaminants are shredded into smaller particles by further processes – improves the quality of the raw material and reduces waste. The Uster Jossi Vision Shield N contamination sorter ensures the best possible detection and removal of contamination.

Conventional camera-based systems cannot match the performance of the top-level spectroscope technology from Uster. These spectroscopes can find contamination even within the invisible range of IR and UV light.

AI-driven business-to-business fashion marketplace Fashinza has appointed Neil Topiwala as its new director in the UK and Pushkar Kumar as its UAE director as the business plans further international expansion.

Following its recent $100 million Series B funding round, Fashinza is focusing on expanding its fashion business into the US, Middle East, Europe, and UK. As part of this plan, Topiwala and Kumar will use their decades of experience in fashion to harness data and cloud-based technology to enable the business to form a more transparent, ethical, and sustainable production and supply chain.

Pushkar and Neil have more than 20 years of experience in the industry and have worked with top brands, retailers, and buying offices, including Inditex, Next, Primark and Landmark. Fashinza expects to be able to make great strides in the US, UK, and European markets with their vast experience and knowledge on both the demand and supply sides and is confident their leadership skills and their extensive experience across different sectors will help Fashinza scale in both demand and supply by bringing in more enterprise clients from the international markets.Fashinzais looking forward to scaling its international business to new heights with the duo of Neil and Pushkar.

Prym, a German apparel manufacturer, is reputed for producing accessories for the global lingerie industry.

Prym Fashion has launched eco-friendly snaps. The snaps, available in EcoWhite or EcoGreen, offer earth-friendly solutions for sportswear, outdoor performance apparel and children’s and babies’ wear manufacturers. The EcoWhite snaps are made from recycled water bottles. The EcoGreen snap is green in color but also green because it is sourced from plant materials, such as potato starch. As a result, this snap is both biodegradable and recyclable. An EcoBlue snap is on the horizon, which will source recycled ocean plastic for production.

The fashion industry is well-known for wasteful practices in manufacturing, including excessive water consumption and chemical run-off. As brands and retailers in the textile industry continue to raise their sustainability goals, details like trim will become increasingly important. Prym Fashion is committed to making snaps that make a difference.

Prym is a company with a rich legacy of close to 500 years, including over two decades in Sri Lanka. Despite the current economic crisis in Sri Lanka, the island has been an ideal destination for the apparel manufacturer. Prym will continue to expand its presence in the country by investing in more machinery and training the local teams to increase their production capacity.

Techtextil will be held in Mumbai, India in September 12 to 14, 2023.

A series of live sessions will spark debates on important industry topics and high-growth application areas. This is the leading business event for the Indian technical textile industry and aims at connecting international and domestic players with buyers from various segments under diverse application areas and creating a one-stop sourcing platform to highlight latest product innovations in technical textiles.

Leading Indian players such as Alok Master batches, Khosla Profil, Park Nonwoven, Sarex Chemicals, Suntech Geo, Weavetech will showcase innovations in high-growth application areas of Geotech, Packtech, Agrotech and Indutech with a focus on products such as specialty fibers, filtration fabrics, functional textiles and advance technology.

Mobiltech, Indutech, Meditech, Packtech and Sportech constitute a major share value in the global market for technical textiles. Major players in the Indian market are Oekotech, Protech, Mobiltech, Geotech, Indutech, Agrotech, Buildtech and Packtech. The technical textile sector’s growth is being accelerated. Theaim is to place India as one of the leaders in the global technical textile market.Key applications of this sector are in areas like agriculture, roads and railways, water resources, hygiene and healthcare, and personal protection. Strong efforts are being made to encourage the use and adoption of technical textiles.

C.L.A.S.S. (Creativity Lifestyle And Sustainable Synergy) will be present at Filo, September 14 to 15, 2022, Italy.

Filo is a yarn and fiber show. C.L.A.S.S. will present its expertise in smart materials, processes, measurements, as well as marketing activities and nextgeneration communication. The aim is to give voice and activate real values and paths of responsible innovation. C.L.A.S.S. will present smart materials and tell its story by introducing its services to support companies on their sustainable journey, from responsible innovation to smart materials, from processes, certifications and measurements to marketing and communication activities.

Since 2007 C.L.A.S.S. has been advocating for a new generation of fashion where the fusion of design, innovation, communication and responsibility shapes an informed and competitive business, able to play both at an economic and social level. Class supports the whole supply chain to trigger change in the system while activating values that speak clearly to contemporary consumers.

At the Filo fair, C.L.A.S.S. will weave new sustainable paths against green washing and activate change. Filo invited the international platform as an ambassador and agent of change to share new sustainability values and its vision for an all-round responsible textile sector. Filo is dedicated to the fashion world’s key ingredients of creativity and also sustainability.

With a massive 84 per cent contribution to total exports earnings of Bangladesh, the readymade garment (RMG) sector witnessed depreciation in the just-ended fiscal year (FY) 2021-22. As per a Textile Today report, Bangladesh’s RMG exports totaled $42.61 million in FY 2021-22 while import of textile and apparel raw materials was worth $19.43 billion. Net exports therefore, stood at $23.22 billion during the year, resulting in a drop in value addition to 54.50 per cent. The decline in apparel value addition can be attributed to a rise in global freight charges coupled with high prices of other raw materials, says Faruque Hassan, President, BGMEA.

Rise in FoB value triggers decline

As per Shovon Islam, Director, BGMEA and Managing Director, Sparrow Group, the drop can also be attributed to a rise in volume of apparel exports and improvement in export freight on board (FoB) value per garment. In fact, increase in FoB value per garment exports has not led to an increase in percentage of value-addition in them, he explains.

The increase in cost is being borne by manufacturers while buyers are paying for the increased cost per garment’s FoB value. The 10 to 15 per cent cost increase in the $42.61 billion RMG exports earning is eating up $4 to $6 billion from exporters’ earnings resulting in net RMG export earnings falling to $38 billion.

Manufacturers’ resilience boosts exports

Since the last 5-6 years, Bangladesh’s apparel exports grew 10 to 15 per cent even after adjusting raw material import cost. Overall, RMG shipments have reached pre-COVID growth levels. This growth is a result of the resilience shown by apparel entrepreneurs. Normally, for manufacturers, imported raw materials make up 60 per cent of the cost, to which they add 40 per cent value. However, with an increase in raw material costs, value addition has dropped, Islam explains.

Consumers shift to MMF

Another important reason for a decline in value addition by Bangladesh manufacturers is the overall change in fashion choices among global consumers. Consumers no longer prefer plain cotton-made garments. Instead, they opt for cotton blends – like Lycra, poly-based knit fabric among others. And since these fabrics are not produced domestically, Bangladesh manufacturers need to import them at a high price, leading to a drop in value addition, Islam sums up.