Once Bangladesh graduates from the least developed country (LDC) status, its readymade garment exports to Canada are likely to face duty. The duty may be 17 per cent to 19 per cent. As of now Bangladesh’s exports are duty-free.

Bangladesh’s apparel exports to Canada witnessed a robust 33 per cent growth in fiscal 2022 after a 13 per cent growth in fiscal 2021.

Japan, Australia and Canada are three potential markets for Bangladesh beyond the traditional US, EU and UK markets.

Bangladesh’s imports from Canada are less compared to exports.Bangladesh and Canada may form a blue ribbon panel to explore possibilities of expanding trade and investment. The signing of a bilateral investment treaty between the two countries would go a long way toward increasing foreign direct investment from Canada to Bangladesh.

Sustainable economic growth, health, and education are the three areas Canada wants to work on in Bangladesh. The country is also working to strengthen garment worker safety in Bangladesh. Canada wants to expand in the services sector in Bangladesh, such as aircraft safety.

Canada is a country of some 37 million people, with French and English as official languages. It is a leading as well as growing trading partner of Bangladesh, providing export opportunities.

Luxury Law Summit Americas will be held in the US, November 2, 2022. Senior executives and lawyers from global fashion brands including Burberry, Louis Vuitton America, David Yurman and Diane von Furstenberg are among the headline speakers.

The one-day conference will explore how the US luxury goods industry is adjusting to the post-pandemic environment and amid a backdrop of increased economic uncertainty.Participants will hear about the luxury outlook for fashion, trade and economics as well as the challenges around luxury, politics and sustainability. There will also be discussions about current trends in luxury travel, the world of luxury jewelry and the secondary art market.

A number of workshops will also be available throughout the day. K&L Gates is hosting a session on fashion’s role in politics, diplomacy and social change. Epstein Drangel is hosting a session on copyright issues in the fashion industry. Steptoe is hosting a session on how to navigate California’s strict consumer protection laws and Greenberg Traurig is hosting a session on brand protection and partnerships. Speakers include Beth Hughes, vice president of the American Apparel and Footwear Association and Gabby Hirata, CEO of Belgian fashion label Diane von Furstenberg.

The Asean Traditional Textile Symposium was held in Malaysia, September 25 to 30, 2022. Participants gained many experiences through the symposium and learnt a lot about traditional textiles in Malaysia.

The aim of the biennial event was to modernise the traditional costume to attract the younger generation to wear it and continuously preserve it for years to come. The event saw over 300 participants from 13 countries and brought together textile artists, artisans and weavers not only from across the country but also from Asean and other regions.

A total of 19 working papers were presented in the symposium. Experts discussed and shared information about the preservation and sustainability of original textile weaving in the Asean and surrounding regions so traditional arts and crafts do not become relics of the past or mere footnotes in history books.

The Asean Traditional Textile Symposium started in 2005 where Indonesia was the first organiser and continued again in the Philippines in 2009, Malaysia (2011), Vietnam (2013), Thailand (2015), Brunei (2017) and the last time in Indonesia (2019). The symposium also featured a textile exhibition as well as demonstrations of craft making such as Tenun Diraja Pahang, songket, Sabah siambitan, Sarawak puakumbu, mengkuang weaving, wood carvings as well as the sale of various crafts.

Wazir Advisorshas partnered with ITA to offer sustainability, digitalization, and contract research services. ITA is based in Germany and is a part of RWTH Aachen University. Wazir Advisors is a global consulting firm based out of India offering services in sectors of textile and apparel, consumer products and retail, and food, agri and dairy. Its scope of services covers strategy, implementation, alliances and skill development. With this partnership, Wazir aims to provide new-age services to textile, apparel, and technical textile stakeholders in the Indian subcontinent who are looking to align with changing times and adopt best global practices.

Sustainability and digitalization have moved from just being buzzwords to being immediate action for the textile industry. Push from global buyers as well as anticipated legislation in developed countries will cause the industry to embrace sustainable manufacturing processes sooner than later. Similarly, with the increasing cost of manufacturing, manpower shortage and need for faster decision-making digitalization is taking a centre seat in the industry. The entire industry is at the cusp of a major transformation. New products and processes that are compliant with ESG norms will be the only way to success for the industry in the near future. Asian countries have so far leveraged the cost aspect. Now is the time for them to think about completely different parameters to evolve further.

OTB has set to achieve carbon neutrality of internal operations by 2030 and of the entire value chain by 2050. Another target is to go public between the end of 2024 and 2025.

This is an international fashion and luxury group whose brands include Diesel, Jil Sander, Maison Margiela, Marni, Viktor & Rolf. OTB has joined the Roadmap to Zero Program of the Zero Discharge of Hazardous Chemicals (ZDHC) Foundation, committing to the development of a responsible water and chemical management strategy and to the elimination of the use of hazardous chemicals from production processes by 2030. About 40 per cent of the electricity used for OTB's internal operations comes from renewable sources.

In addition, since 2020, Diesel has joined The Fashion Pact, the global coalition of fashion and textile companies acting in three main areas: mitigating global warming, restoring biodiversity, and protecting the oceans. Used Diesel-branded denim garments are meticulously repaired, refurbished and sold in selected Italian stores and online throughout Europe. Maison Margiela has a line of restored and repurposed limited-edition garments or accessories. Jil Sander has a collection made of organic, high-performance and environmentally sustainable fibers that combine aesthetics and comfort, sophistication and high resistance to the elements.

Seoul Fashion Week will be held October 11 to 15, 2022.

South Korea’s largest fashion event will present spring-summer 2023 collections by 30 designers. Four to eight brands will present runway shows on each day of the five-day Seoul Fashion Week. Some 200 buyers from 23 countries will visit the event.

A trade show will be held in a hybrid format, combining online and in-person formats. A total of 86 Korean designer brands will show their collections at 67 separate booths and four joint booths set up in a 2,992-square-meter hall. Brands will set up stores where people can make purchases at discounted prices using QR codes. Actor Lee Jung-jae was the global ambassador of the previous fashion week, featuring fall-winter 2022 collections. The event was held in an online-offline hybrid format.

Bangladesh is aiming at hiking apparel exports to South Korea. A big push will be taken this year to capture a bigger share of the South Korean marketwith diversified items such as underwear, denims, shirts, jackets and pullovers as South Korea has a great demand for high-value winter clothing and denim. Other potential products that have good demand in the country include non-leather footwear, home textiles, jute and jute products etc.

Fashion and textile production is returning to the US.

What once appeared to be a trend of bringing major manufacturing operations back to the United States, as a stopgap measure to mitigate complications arising from the pandemic economy, is now seen as a wise long term strategy guaranteeing operational viability, resiliency and value.

While high labor costs have long been used to justify offshore production, volatile supply chains, shipping complications and costs, tariffs, perceived sociopolitical instability, and other factors — including the proliferation of automation technologies that necessitate fewer laborers to operate in general — have made reshoring to North America a practical, profitable, and safer proposition.

The economics of bringing production closer to the end consumer — immediately delivery that negates the need for vast and vulnerable supply chains, the ability to react to demand in real time, the eco-friendly aspect of a streamlined process, and the mitigation of troublesome external factors in general — has become attractive.

Manufacturers prefer to base their businesses in the US, even in highly regulated and high-cost regions that would not appear to be logical production sites.One of the greatest attributes of localized, on-demand fashion and textile production models is that the strategy is entirely modular. It can be replicated to mitigate risk, foster operational agility and versatility, and deliver profitability anywhere.

Trousers and shorts were the dominant category in Australia’s total apparel imports during the first half of 2022.They had a 21 per cent share and were followed by jerseys with a 15 per cent share and shirts with a nine per cent share.

These three products together accounted for more than 45 per cent of total apparel imports by Australia. Import of other products were T-shirts (nine per cent), dresses (eight per cent), innerwear (eight per cent), jackets and blazers (five per cent), nightwear (two per cent), baby wear (two per cent) and socks (two per cent). The Australian clothing market is growing by fourper cent a year. The market's largest segment is women’s apparel.

Since 2014, the Australian clothing industry has faced numerous challenges. Cautious spending habits, increasing competition, and rising lease costs are all creating negative impacts on available revenue. When all segments of the clothing industry in Australia are combined, they are responsible for about 2,20,000 jobs. That figure includes modeling and styling employment.

Australia also exports textiles, most of which are unprocessed commodities. These items are then sold back to the industry from European luxury brands which are based in Italy, France, or Great Britain.

Ezio Garciamendez is Kontoor’s senior vice president, chief supply chain officer. He will have responsibility for all aspects of supply chain management including global operations, planning, manufacturing, sourcing, quality, customer service, distribution, logistics and master data governance. He will also oversee all components of the company’s supply chain strategy, including trade-related functions and operations.

He has a track record of innovation in the global supply chain industry and experience in rolling out advanced solutions across the most complex and multifaceted supply chains. He has more than 20 years of experience in the consumer-packaged goods industry. He has held various roles with increasing responsibility within Procter and Gamble by leading highly complex, multi-category, end-to-end global supply chain operations including manufacturing, distribution, procurement, planning, logistics, engineering, and technical services.

Kontoor Brands, an apparel company with a portfolio that includes the world’s most iconic consumer brands, Wrangler and Lee, designs, manufactures and distributes superior high-quality products that look good and fit right, giving people around the world the freedom and confidence to express them selves. This is a purpose-led organization focused on leveraging its global platform, strategic sourcing model and best-in-class supply chain to drive brand growth and deliver long-term value for its stakeholders.

During 2021-22 India’s exports of manmade fibers have grown 82 per cent and manmade fiber blended textiles rose 46 per cent compared to the previous year.

Exports of manmade fibre yarns 72 per cent, while manmade fiber fabrics 30 per cent and manmade fiber made-ups 28 per cent. However, the share of the value-added segments like fabrics and made-ups in total exports has gone down from 63 per cent to 56 per cent.

In the current financial year exports have been slightly stressed in the firstt quarter. However, an encouraging turnaround was seen from August 2022 exports. Further growth of exports of synthetic textiles seems likely. The PLI scheme has been introduced for manmade fiber textiles, the ATUF scheme is being continued and RoDTEP rates have been rationalized. Among the possible future measures are incorporation of more manmade fiber textiles in the PLI 2 scheme, extension of the interest equalization scheme for yarns, implementation of the fiberneutral policy, treatingmanmade fiber textiles at par with natural fibers and treating both merchant exporters and manufacturing exporters as one.

The pandemic paralyzed economies around the world for two years and caused a lasting damage on labor productivity and potential output.