COVID-19 forced Indian textile industry to transfer a large number of textile orders to Chinese factories for production. For example, all orders received by 100 New Delhi factories were transferred to China. To fulfill these orders, Chinese factories are opening new production lines and expanding their staff.

India’s share in China’s pie

Alibaba international station figures reveal, since May, China recorded 100 per cent increase in fabrics and textile raw material orders. It also witnessed 200 per cent increase in apparel orders. In the first three quarters of this fiscal, China’s total import and export volume increased 0.7 per cent to reach 23.12 trillion yuan with Indian textile orders playing a significant role in this.

The Indian textile and clothing industry is worth $ 250 billion. It is also one of the largest sources of forex income and accounts for about 15 per cent of India's total export revenue. From 2000-2018, the industry attracted FDI worth $2.97 billion. However, the pandemic stalled India’s progress and many of factories could not start work as scheduled. As a result, many orders were transferred to China which not only has a high degree of industrial automation but also could complete these orders in shortest possible time.

Boom time for Chinese exports

The Chinese textile and clothing industry has been growing well since May. Exports have been increasing with volume of textiles from the General Administration of Customs increasing by 3.29 per cent to 215.8 per cent in the first half of this year. From January to September, China's textile exports reached $117.95 billion and the export growth rate increased by 5.9 percentage points compared with the first half of the year. According to the General Administration of Customs, since the second half of the year, China’s clothing exports too have improved. The volume of its clothing exports increased 6.5 per cent in September to $15.23 billion.

In general, the Southeast Asian textile and apparel industry is benefiting from the Christmas season in the West. Some factory owners in the region have received orders from European and American countries.

India benefits from low costs

The Indian textile and apparel industry is also benefitting with high orders. The industry offers several advantages with labor cost, energy cost, land cost, government tax, tariff and environmental protection. The gross profit margin of local textile and garment enterprises in Southeast Asia is 5 per cent higher than that of domestic enterprises. Hence, a lot of orders from this region are likely to return to India and Southeast Asia once the outbreak is over. As demand from Europe and the US has not yet recovered, domestic Chinese enterprises need to balance their short-term interests and long-term strategies.

At present, the demand for medium and low-end textile products is low-end in China. Designers in the country favor new elastic fabrics like T400 and T800. Sun Ruizhe, President, China Textile Industry Federation, has advised domestic fabric enterprises to foray into the middle and high-end fabric markets.

Local fashion e-commerce stabilizes China’s foreign trade

The increasing proportion of cross-border e-commerce exports is helping China stabilize its foreign trade. The country is also benefitting from its local fashion e-commerce users. To explore these benefits, Chinese enterprises need to deepen brand building and gradually move from being flow and product oriented to being brand oriented.

The Chinese clothing industry has entered a new stage of strategic restructuring and innovation and reform, and currently leads the global clothing industry reform, says China Garments Association.

As COVID-19 has reemphasized the need to reduce dependence of Asian imports, South African clothing retailers are planning to boost local apparel production. As reported by the Kohan Textile Journal, one of South Africa’s biggest dedicated clothing retailers, The Foschini Group (TFG), has decided to reduce its reliance on single-source suppliers like China. The company now sources 35 per cent of its clothing requirements from South Africa itself. It has been investing in “quick-response” local manufacturing capacity for the last seven years which has enabled it to reduce its lead times to just 42 days.

TFG now plans to expand its facilities over the next five years. However, Anthony Thunstrom, CEO, believes, the advantage of local manufacturing cannot be applied to all products and depends on the availability of the required raw materials and manpower.

Increasing local textile purchases to 50 per cent

Another clothing retailer Truworths favors local manufacturing as it enables quick response and fast fashion. The retailers’ percentage of local textile to total textile purchase has reached 45 per cent and is expected to further increase to 50 per cent over the next few years.

Truworths recently purchased the Barrie Cline Clothing design house that has exclusively supplied to the group for more than 20 years. The retailer has pivoted its local supply chain model around this design house and a few select design houses like Barrie Cline. However, Michael Mark, CEO, believes, local manufacturing also faces certain challenges such as an ageing skills base, an unstable power supply and rising electricity costs.

A price-sensitive retailer which caters to lower-income consumers, Mr Price is also increasing its local content. The retailer has increased its sourcing of local merchandise from 31 per cent in 2015 to 35 per cent. While China still remains the dominant supplier for Mr Price, the group is diverting its focus to other African countries, which alongwith South Africa account for about 45.7 per cent of its merchandise inputs.

The group is also committed to sourcing 1,357 tons of cotton from local producers via its membership of the South Africa Cotton Cluster (SACC). It is working closely with the government through the CTFL Master Plan 2030, which aims to boost locally-produced goods to 65 per cent of overall apparel items by 2030.

Other retailers join the movement

Retailers Game, Woolworths and Pep have also committed to local sourcing. Not typically associated with apparel, Game re-entered the affordable clothing market by launching its new clothing line Stylessentials in August this year. Nearly 90 per cent of this range has been sourced from local suppliers, while 25 per cent has been locally manufactured, says Andrew Stein, Vice President. The retailer aims to increase the percentage of locally-manufactured items to support local businesses.

Similarly, Woolworths also plans to source more apparel locally with over 50 per cent of its purchases coming from the SADC region. Pick n Pay Clothing has collaborated with South African fashion designers such as Gavin Rajah, Julia Buchanan and Katekani Moreku to make locally produced styles more accessible. Pep Clothing (PepClo), a division of Pepkor, manufactures basic school clothing, knitted underwear and flip flops at its four local factory divisions.

Pakistan’s value-added textile exporters recently urged the government to allow duty-free import of yarn as rapidly rising prices of local fibers are severely affecting their competitiveness. Cotton yarn 30/1 prices have increased by 17 per cent in the last three months, and therefore, the government must intervene to save value-added textile exports, according to the Pakistan Apparel Forum (PAF) and the Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMEA).

In a joint statement, PAF chairman Muhammad Jawed Bilwani and PHMEA central chairman Mohammad Riaz Ahmed said it is alarming that during the last decade, Pakistan's cotton production decreased by 35.42 per cent from 9.60 million (480 pound) bales in 2009-10 to 6.20 million bales in 2019-20 due to sub-standard cotton seeds supplied to farmers.

The trade organizations said huge value-added textile export orders are available, but exporters are unable to accept due to unavailability of cotton yarn in the country at competitive prices, according to Pakistani media reports.

They demanded the stakeholders should be allowed to import cotton yarn from any country till its scarcity is controlled and the required quantity of yarn is available in abundance in all domestic markets.

They suggested that the government should make it compulsory for the large spinning units having more than 30,000 spindles and production to grow their own cotton to manufacture cotton yarn and extend full support to them in this regard

Tablez, a leading organized multi-brand retail group, has launched the first store of GO Sport, a global sporting retailer, at DLF Avenue, Saket Delhi. The brand will host a multitude of sports brands under one roof making it the first Multi-Brand, Multi-Discipline Sports Superstore in Delhi.

After successfully launching the superstores in Mumbai and Bangalore last year, Tablez aims to strengthen its retail footprint further in India with the launch of GO Sport’s third store in Delhi. Spread over 7000 sq. ft, the superstore will host multiple brands under the same roof along with offering a great in-store experience.

GO Sport's offerings will range across apparel, accessories, footwear, and equipment in the categories of running, cycling, fitness, outdoor like hiking, trekking, and camping along with racquet sports (badminton, tennis), team sports (football, cricket, basketball, volleyball), and swimming. Tablez plans to expand GO Sport outlets to other metropolitan cities in the coming year.

Shima Seiki has launched yarnbank, its new digital yarn sourcing web service. Yarnbank is the world’s first online web service for searching and viewing the latest yarns, developed with cooperation from yarn companies from around the world. Shima Seiki of Wakayama, Japan, is one of the leading solutions provider in the fashion textile industry.

Registered users have free access to the yarnbank archive of yarn information and digital yarn data. Users can also download yarn data for free, for use in fabric simulation and virtual sampling on SDS-onE APEX4 design system as well as APEXFiz subscription-based design software likewise announced last month. Users can, thereby, avoid the need to scan yarn on their own.

By using yarn that is available for actual production, users can further rest assured that their simulations created using yarnbank are not merely realistic images but accurate representations using yarn that can actually be purchased and used in production. Such clear communication is possible with yarnbank by bringing together each player in the supply chain, spinner, knit manufacturer, and apparel companies, and connecting them digitally to eliminate trial-and-error sample making that is the legacy of obsolete analogue fashion production, according to a media statement by Shima Seiki.

Sustainable denim brands Outland Denim and Nudie Jeans in partnership with IT company Precision Solutions Group (PSG), have lunched the Supply Network Intelligence System, a program that seeks out and works to resolve instances of deliberate exploitation, slavery and unsafe working conditions.

The program’s first order of business is supporting workers at Turkey’s organic cotton farms, which supply both brands with the cotton they use to create their denim.

The program is set up in a way that allows facilitators to promptly investigate reports of human rights violations and communicate them to stakeholders, government bodies and NGOs for resolution.

Through the program, which has already reached 1.5 million individuals, 150 communications have been arranged with the human rights hotline, ranging from reports of pay discrimination to unsafe working conditions, and 370 vulnerable individuals have benefited from the distribution of COVID-19 prevention kits.

Hyosung is accelerating entry to the global eco-friendly fibre market by supplying an eco-friendly material to Osprey, the world’s leading outdoor backpack brand. Hyosung is a comprehensive fibre manufacturer, headquartered in South Korea, which produces the majority of leading world-class products that are used throughout the fibre industry.

MIPAN regen robic developed by Hyosung is the world’s first eco-friendly high-strength nylon yarn brand. This eco-friendly material is created by recycling by-products generated from the fibre production stage. Lightweight with excellent tearing strength (resistance against tearing) and wear resistance, MIPAN regen robic is suitable for outdoor products, such as backpacks, working clothes, and swimsuits. When 1kg of reclaimed nylon yarn is produced, an effect to reduce greenhouse gas emission in an amount equivalent to 6 – 7kg of CO2 is created. Therefore, this product is known as an eco-friendly yarn.

In the first quarter of this year, Hyosung TNC started supplying MIPAN regen robic, a high-strength reclaimed nylon yarn, to Osprey. Osprey will release ‘Talon/Tempest Series,’ a flagship backpack line created with MIPAN regen robic, for the spring season next year, according to a press release by Hyosung.

Denim brand Tonello and designer Piero Turk jointly launched a new sustainable denim collection at the Kingpins24 show. The collection offers 18 exclusive and contemporary denim pieces treated with the brand’s new finishing process known as The Laundry (R )Evolution.

The process involves only two technologies in the entire finishing cycle, reducing waste and optimizing resources: LaserBlaze, and The All-in-One-System. The Metro software processes real data, in real time to check all laundry consumption, optimizing processing times and improving performance.

The all-in-one system performs all washing operations by integrating four sustainable technologies into a single machine: ECOfree 2, which uses ozone in both the water and air; NoStone® for authentic and pumice-free stone-wash effects; UP, for washing processes with at least 50 per cent less water; Core, a nebulizing system improving performance and reducing water consumption.

As a result of The Laundry (R )Evolution, Tonello developed two innovative and patent-pending processes: OBleach and Wake. OBleach is the new Tonello process, which uses only ozone with an authentic, sustainable and cool bleach.

Wake is the first totally natural dyeing system that uses only plants and biodegradable vegetable waste like flowers, berries and roots, without harmful chemicals additives.

As per a report by Persistent Market Research, Asia is expected to register high growth in the next five years in the global surgical apparel market. China and India will be the fastest growing surgical apparel markets in Asia-Pacific region. Some key driving forces for surgical apparel market in these emerging countries include expanding healthcare sector, large pool of patients and increasing healthcare spending.

In recent times there is increased use of surgical apparel due to increasing stringent regulations for healthcare professionals and patient safety. Increasing prevalence of infections and increasing number of surgical procedures are some of the key factors driving the growth for the global surgical apparel market. In addition, increasing incidence of hospital acquired infection is also fuelling the growth of the global surgical apparel market. However, strict regulatory requirements and unstable raw material cost are some of the major factors restraining the growth for the global surgical apparel market.

Advanced composite technology, emergence of biofunctional textile and non-conventional types of gloves would develop opportunities for the global surgical apparel market. However, maintaining a balance between quality and cost would pose a challenge for the global surgical apparel market.

The upcoming ASW V-Expo will host theme-based boutique two-day-sourcing show for the industry besides several webinars, master classes, open house discussions and workshops. The first V-Expo is being held under the theme ‘Moving beyond China for apparel sourcing’, which will see apparel manufacturers from South Asia displaying their products for global buyers, networking with buyers, suppliers and peers. The webinars at the V-Expo will debate on issues like: Why is it important to move sourcing out of China or beyond China; Regional collaboration (Indian Sub-continent) is critical today; Preferred supplier in new normal; And Winners of the shift from China and why.

The show will host knowledge sessions on various subjects like manufacturing countries, the retail markets and shifting directions that are influencing the sourcing business. The Apparel Sourcing Week (ASW) platform is aligned to the changing dynamics of the industry, moving in pace with evolving and shifting world trade of apparel sourcing while also acknowledging the changing needs and wants of the customer.