Turkey’s apparel exports grew by around five per cent from January 2022 to November 2022. The export revenues earned by Turkey in the first eleven months of 2022 are the highest ever and the growth has been driven by soaring demand from Europe amid supply chain bottlenecks and soaring shipping costs.

Exports in November alone rose by close to two per cent, marking the highest November sales so far. Exports of readymade garments however fell five per cent in November 2022 as compared to November 2021.

The European Union imported $ 920 million worth of Turkish ready-to-wear goods in November 2022, followed by the Commonwealth of Independent States with $ 200 million, and other European countries with $ 188 million.

Turkey has a target of becoming one of the top three textile exporting countries in the world. The country is already one of the top five textile exporting countries and overtook countries like South Korea and Italy to claim the fifth spot.The industry has increased its share in global textile exports to an all-time-high of three percent. Turkish textile companies are exporting their products to more than 200 countries. Turkey is well known for near-shore manufacturing capabilities that are of high quality.

The production-linked incentive scheme for India’s textile sector has attracted investments of Rs 1,536 crores.

Approval letters were issued to 56 applicants who met the eligibility criteria. Applications under the PLI scheme for textiles were received through a web portal from January 1, 2022, to February 28, 2022. The PLI scheme with an approved outlay of Rs 10,683 crores was launched to promote the production of manmade fiber, apparel, manmadefabrics and products of technical textiles in the country to enable the textile industry achieve size and scale and become competitive.

Applicants who have completed the mandatory criteria for the formation of a new company have had approval letters issued to them. Investment to the tune of Rs 1,536 crores has been made so far.

There is now the second edition of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. The scheme for garments, made-ups and home textiles will have lower minimum investment and turnover requirements so as to attract small and medium entities. The incentives on offer are slightly lower than what was offered under PLI 1 but the scheme is still attractive. The minimum investment requirement for the first part is Rs300 crores with a minimum turnover requirement of Rs600 crores. Part two requires a minimum investment of Rs100 crores with a minimum turnover requirement of Rs200 crores.

Pakistan’s textile exports plunged by 19 percent in November 2022 as compared to the corresponding period last year. So says All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA).

At a time when the country is faced with immense economic challenges and looking toward the IMF and friendly countries for inflows of dollars to meet its external liabilities, the continuous fall in textile exports is alarming and expected to add to its economic woes.

The textile sector plays a significant role in supporting the economy and continues to be in the spotlight owing to country’s dependence on foreign exchange.This vital sector, which also provides massive job opportunities, contributed around 60 percent to total exports during the last fiscal year. The devaluation against the dollar which would have given Pakistan’s textile exporters a competitive advantage over its competitors in terms of pricing has not helped. Instead the sector is faced with a crisis that includes liquidity constraints, energy shortages and non-functioning of new projects.The recent floods also destroyed the cotton crop with only five million bales available this year while the demand of the industry is above 14 million bales.

Also foreign exchange issues have curtailed the import of cotton and other essential inputs.

Pakistan’s cotton production for the year 2022-23 is estimated to fall by 43 per cent compared to the past year.

The primary reason for this year’s situation is the devastating monsoon floods that damaged major cottongrowing regions. Pakistan is the fifth largest cotton producer globally but the country will need to import at least five million bales in the ongoing fiscal year to meet the demand from the textile sector.

Farmers in Pakistan have continued to grapple with severe droughts and catastrophes like floods. Sugar mills have come up in cotton growing areas. Sugarcane has proved a better alternative for farmers tired of failing to protect cotton from pinkboll worm and other constraints, but the reward cannot outweigh the cost borne by the country in terms of losing textile exports.

The country’s fields have been populated with biotechnology cotton, originally developed for temperate environments with lower pest infestations and never intended for subtropical climates like in Pakistan and India.Bacterial treated cotton doesn’t grow well at temperatures above 40 degrees, which are usually the average in summer. Given the year-long crop cultivation with no crop planning, insects stay in the field for the whole year. Transgenic varieties can prove to be the key in battling pests, weeds, and climate.

Vietnam’s textile and garment export turnover to Indonesia reached 10.057 million USD in September 2022, more than four times that of the previous month.

The figure was 2.354 million USD in August, 5.257 million USD in July, 3.801 million USD in June, 1.232 million USD in May and 2.719 million USD in April.The increasing trend was recorded in the third quarter of 2022 when the figure neared 17.7 million USD, up from 7.753 million USD in the second quarter, and 15.972 million USD in the first quarter.

Last year, the figure was 13.308 million USD in the fourth quarter, 51 million USD in the third quarter, and 12 million USD in the second quarter.Indonesia’s garment and textile imports from Vietnam reached 53.543 million USD in 2021 and 41.611 million USD in 2020.For the last few years,

Indonesia has been a net importer of clothing products from Vietnam. As it happens Indonesia is a significant importer of used clothes. Indonesia’s import value of used clothes skyrocketed 607 per cent year on year from January 2022 to September 2022.

The large import value of used clothes even beats the import value of knitted and non-knitted clothing and accessories.

Nearly 15 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat have shut down. The reason is high costs and short supply of lignite coal and imported coal. Prices of lignite, imported coal, colours and chemicals have gone up.

The lignite price hike has affected the production cost of textile fabrics as it constitutes around 25 per cent of the production cost to the industry. This time, due to the extremely intense monsoon, the average allocation of 40 per cent of approved capacity (of lignite) has gone down to 20 percent. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the cost of imported coal has shot up to Rs 8,000 or Rs 9,000 a ton in December this year from Rs 5,400 in June last year.

The industry consumes 80 per cent of imported coal and 20 per cent of lignite in the boiler depending on the quality of textile products and the type of boiler.

Surat is known as India’s textile city. Every day over four crore meters of textile cloth are produced in Surat and passed through different processes of dyeing, printing and packaging. There are around 350 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat that employ lakhs of migrant labourers.

Bangladesh's apparel exports declined in the first 21 days of December 2022.

This is attributed to inflation in the sector’s major export destinations fueled by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Garment export earnings dropped suddenly in September after a long stretch of growth for the previous 13 months. Then they bounced back in October and November this year as some buyers received their deferred shipments of goods during that time. The slowdown of apparel shipments was expected this year as most factories have been receiving less work orders compared to previous years.

This situation is expected to continue till April-May 2023. Some factories are running factories at 90 per cent capacity. Garment prices have fallen about three per cent or four per cent compared to last year. Prices of raw materials like yarn have fallen but that is hardly enough to make any profit for most of the factories. Some usually receive a number of orders by December every year to keep them occupied for the next six or seven months but this year no orders have come after April.

Apparel exporters have been facing many challenges in running their units. For one they have been struggling to pay workers’ salaries regularly.

The eleven per cent import duty imposed on cotton last year should be withdrawn. So says the Cotton Association of India (CAI).

The import duty on cotton was imposed in February 2021 but it is said to have drastically eroded the competitiveness of India’s value-added products in the international markets, and sp the country’s textile industry, which is the second largest employment provider in the country, is now constrained to work with only 50 per cent of its installed capacity.

Expressing concern over the availability of extra-long staple (ELS) cotton in the country, the association says that every year India requires around 20 lakh bales of extra-long staple cotton but produces around five lakh bales. CAI adds that cotton farmers should be given higher minimum support prices to boost production of ELS cotton.

Cotton productivity in India is among the lowest in the world. As against the global average of 744 kg per hectare, India has an yield of 468 kg per hectare.This is below the cotton productivity of some of the smaller countries like Bangladesh, Syria, Sudan etc. The total cotton supply for the months of October 2022 and November 2022 in India is estimated at 84.68 lakh bales.

The Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia is expected to benefit India’s apparel industry.

This deal is likely to benefit various labor-intensive sectors which are subjected to five per cent import duty by Australia currently. This deal will provide immediate market access at zero duty for 98.3 per cent of tariff lines which account for 96.4 per cent of India’s exports in value terms to Australia and the remaining 1.7 per cent lines over five years.

Overall, Australia is offering duty elimination on 100 per cent of its tariff lines which will ensure duty free access covering all labor-intensive sectors such as textiles and apparel. With the elimination of duty, India’s exports of textiles and apparels are expected to rise in the next three years. Additional capacity creation due to exports and re-investment is likely to create additional employment of 40,000 persons per annum.

This ECTA has a higher value addition of 35 per cent for specifying country of origin, which has been deliberately kept to avoid the leakages from other countries. India has a less than five per cent share in Australia’s imports. With the ECTA, India will have an advantage over Vietnam and Indonesia in the Australian market.

Gen Z’s much-loved ultra-cheap throwaway fashion brand Shein that has its origins in China is facing challenges from multiple competitors who have emulated this enormously successful business model. A fellow-Chinese cross-border platform Temu is also off to a promising start. Temu ranks 2nd in the shopping section of Apple’s App Store in the US, following Amazon Shopping with 3.8 stars ranked by 339 people, says Sensor Tower statistics released in October, 2022. The platform is regarded as a successor to Chinese online fashion retailer Shein. Shein now ranks lower than Temu in the shopping section.

Temu takes on Shein

On September 1, Pinduoduo, one of the most popular Chinese e-commerce companies, launched a cross-border e-commerce platform named Temu, marking the firm’s first attempt to target the US market. Temu means “Team Up, Price Down”. Similar to fast fashion retailer Shein, Temu offers goods at incredibly low prices, although Temu’s offerings go beyond clothing. Customers can browse through 12 different product categories, including men and women’s clothing, kids’ fashion, accessories and jewelry, and bags and shoes.

Unlike Shein, Temu can rely on Pinduoduo’s pool of over 11 million suppliers and manufacturers to expand the number of merchants and items on its platform. Chen Lei, Chairman and CEO of Pinduoduo says Pinduoduo “Will not repeat what others have done” but will create unique value from the needs of consumers. Nevertheless, while many consumers are motivated to purchase due to low prices, a portion of consumers may conversely become wary of these ultra-low price-points. This explains why Temu’s top selling items are mostly daily necessities and gadgets, these products themselves don’t cost much and their quality won’t mean a lot to the customers. Although Temu’s top selling items remain daily necessities and gadgets, its categories have been gradually expanding, with products from new sub-categories such as kitchenware and decorative goods also rapidly increasing in sales. Moreover, the arrival of the holiday peak season in the US also led to a boom in festival products sales, all for an astoundingly low price.

Big attraction of group buying

Group buying refers to a way of buying in which consumers unite to increase their bargaining power. Making the sacrifice of small profits for more frequent turnover, merchants can offer discounts for group purchases below retail prices. This is a win-win scenario where customers buy at a more favorable price, while merchants earn a smaller profit per unit but enjoy much quicker sales and an increase in sales volume and profit overall. Temu brings group-buying to the West. On the app, old users can get a 40 per cent by inviting their friends to join the platform through a provided link. By increasing total sales volume, Temu is able to keep the price of their products extremely low.

PDD Overseas Support Program 2022

Pinduoduo Overseas Support Program 2022 was created to help Chinese companies explore overseas markets and, to some degree, pave the way for Temu. In the plan, several measures were taken to attract sellers to Temu. According to Pinduoduo’s arrangement, Temu is not only using various promotional methods to attract new sellers, but also ensuring product quality and merchant diversity through China’s strong supply chain.

In addition to low prices and discounts, Pinduoduo also mimics Amazon’s two key features: free shipping and free returns. In order to attract customers to place orders, Temu launched a limited-time Free Shipping discount for all orders. Currently, the delivery time of Temu products is generally 7-15 days. If the actual delivery time exceeds the estimated one, the platform will refund the goods in full.