Flooding and drought are having a crushing impact on the global cotton industry.

The impacts of climate change are being felt in multiple major cotton-producing countries. Floods have been devastating in Pakistan, with nearly 1,200 people killed to date. More than 33 million people have been affected. The impact on the cotton crop will not be fully realised until the water subsides but sources on the ground are reporting a large reduction in the expected crop for the 2022-23 season. The ICAC is reducing the estimated production for Pakistan from 1.5 million tons to one million tons.

In the United States, the effects on the cotton crop in Texas have been devastating and currently amount to an estimated loss of over a million tons compared with the previous season. This puts the current US crop at just over 2.7 million tons. And while the West Texas region has received a good amount of rain in the past few weeks, the precipitation has come much too late to help the dry land cotton — and if bolls are open in irrigated fields; it could spell trouble for quality.

Globally, we will see continued volatility and potentially higher prices throughout the entire 2022-23 season.

India is planning to make Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) mandatory for viscose staple fiber.

The aim is to check imports of low quality viscose staple fiber. A quality control order will be imposed on imports.Viscose staple fiber is a manmade, bio-degradable fiber used for manufacturing various textiles.

The move comes just a year after anti-dumping duties on imports of viscose staple fiber from China and Indonesia were revoked to make the domestic user industry, including manufacturers of garments and yarn, more competitive. Domestic production of viscose staple fiber is mostly done by Grasim Industries, which is the dominant producer of the fiber in the country.

Viscose staple fiber needs to conform to the corresponding Indian standard and should bear the standard mark under a license from the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). BIS will be the certifying and enforcing authority and, in addition, an officer not below the rank of Assistant Director, Textiles Committee, Ministry of Textiles, shall also be the enforcing authority.

The quality control orderwill not apply to viscose staple fiber meant for export, which conforms to the specification required by the foreign buyer.

As of now, more than 450 products are under the ambit of mandatory certification. Consumer products under mandatory certification include toys, cement, electric iron, electric immersion water heater, domestic food mixer, switches, helmets, domestic pressure cookers and automotive tires.Several consumer electronic products are also under the ambit of compulsory certification such as mobile phones, laptops, TV, power adapters, power banks and digital cameras.

Première Vision has launched a new trade fair to complement the July event in Paris. The new show Fashion Rendez-Vous will take place from September 7 to 8, 2022, in central Paris, while the flagship Première Vision Paris show is on a new calendar, taking place for the first time in July earlier this year.

Fashion Rendez-Vous would allow support for brands and buyers as they finalise their fall-winter 2023-24 collections.Out of the total 122 exhibiting companies at the event, 93 will be weavers, eleven are accessories and components manufacturers, eight are design studios and designers, another eight are tanners and two are garment manufacturers.

The majority of exhibitors are from Italy, at 50, with 34 from France, and the rest from countries including Turkey, Portugal, the UK, Japan and China.

The July 2022 Premiere Vision show focused on climate change. The physical fall/winter show marked industry-wide acceleration and cooperation in addressing climate impact in the fashion supply chain. Designers applauded the global textiles fair’s major calendar change to July from September. They felt July was much better for sourcing since lead times are much longer now. Menswear designers, with little break from showing to starting the next collection, lauded the switch. They were able to combine winter ’23, spring ’24 and winter ’24 at the July show, which meant they did three seasons.

Nigeria is looking at strengthening its ties with the Indian textile industry to revive its cotton integrated industry.

A 12-member delegation on a week’s study tour to India held discussions with the industry in some of the textile hubs to learn more about the best practices adopted across the textile value chain.Indian investments in the textile sector in Nigeria are very high.

Nigeria has 84 million sq km of fertile land and nearly one million sq km is under cotton cultivation. However, the textile industry in Nigeria, which was once a thriving sector, is facing challenges because of import of garments at low prices. The influx of low cost Chinese garments through the unorganised route has undermined the local industry. Hence Nigeria is looking at strengthening cooperation with the Indian textile and garment industry in the areas of cotton production, trade, investments, and capacity building.

India is working to boost its technical textile industry and is willing to partner with and support Nigeria in terms of provision of textile machinery, technology, capacity building and training in the entire textile value chain. India recognises the immense potential of Africa as the home of the world’s largest free trade area by the number of participating countries and the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Bangladesh’s readymade garment exports grew 35 per cent in 2021-22. However in the first month of the new fiscal year the growth was only 16 per cent. Consumers in the US, the UK and European Union countries, the major markets of Bangladesh’s readymade garments, have been facing the pressure of inflation.Sales in apparel shops in those countries have dropped and stocks have been piling up in warehouses. As a result, the rate of new orders for the next two seasons has been declining.

Retailers are suspending current orders as their sales have reduced due to high inflation whereas new orders have decreased as well. Therefore, Bangladesh’s trade will remain low for two to three months. Walmart, an American multinational retailer, has cancelled orders worth billions of dollars given to manufacturers across the world for August. This worries many garment traders of Bangladesh as Walmart is one of the top buyers of Bangladeshi apparel products.

On the other hand buyers are shifting their business from China because of the trade war, coronavirus restrictions and the ban on the use of Chinese cotton. This could give a raise to Bangladesh’s exports. Many buyers are hoping to shift a significant portion of their business from China and expand their business in Bangladesh.

Investments in sustainable dyeing technologies are increasing amongst South American denim manufacturers. Peru-based Nuevo Mundo is the first South America-based manufacturer to adopt a sustainable dyeing technology after it abandoned chemical production of liquid indigo. Switzerland-based Sedo Engineering has developed Smart-Indigo™, a disruptive new technology to produce liquid indigo with oxygen being the only waste product. The technology uses electricity to produce liquid indigo for denim dyeing.

Creating healthier workplaces

As per a Textile World report, this makes the entire process free of hazardous chemicals, emit 90-per cent less carbon dioxide, consume 70-per cent less energy and 30 per cent less water at different stages of the process. A great protector of the environment, this technology helps create safer and healthier workplaces besides making production more economical. The technology is being used by 20 installations in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, China and Italy in addition to this first installation in South America. It enables Nuevo Mundo to create a unique value starting from the indigo dye that is one of the two main components of the denim indigo imills, says Mayo, Owner,

Facilitating an ecological transaction

Being cleaner, the technology helps decrease the environmental impact of dyeing and facilitates an ecological transaction, adds. It liquefies the indigo powder by adopting a new approach that consumes fewer resources than existing methods. Using only indigo pigment, caustic soda, water and electricity, the process is fully automated with the clean liquid indigo produced, metered and fed directly into the dye bath. This is the most sustainable method to dye denims, believes Sedo Engineering as it enables consumers and clothing brands to drive the change towards sustainability.

Cost advantages

The process also gives producers the advantage of producing their own dye on-site in required quantities. This leads to cost savings due as no costs are incurred to procure chemicals or pre-reduced liquid-indigo. Additionally, it also reduces the costs or water, energy and wastewater treatment, and, is independent from suppliers.

With the textile world moving towards increased sustainability, brands and manufacturers need to change accordingly. Currently being driven by pioneers like Nuevo Mundo, the change is highlighting the requirement of balance between planet, people and profit.

Trade preference programs provide duty-free US market access to selected exports of eligible developing countries.

Unlike free trade agreements, all preference programs are unilateral, meaning they do not require reciprocal trade concessions.

There are five major trade preference programs enacted in the United States, including Generalized System of Preferences, which applies to developing countries as a whole. However, the US GSP program excludes most textile and apparel products due to import competition concerns. The other four trade preference programs target specific regions. These are the Andean Trade Preference Act, the Caribbean Basin Economic Recovery Act, the Caribbean Basin Trade Partnership Act and the African Growth and Opportunity Act.

In 2021, about two per cent of US apparel imports came from trade preference partners.US trade preferences reflect both economic development and foreign policy goals. In addition to the economic benefits, eligibility criteria create incentives for beneficiary countries to support objectives such as adopting and enforcing internationally recognized worker rights, reducing barriers to investment, and enforcing intellectual property rights.

However, the trade preference program is not without controversies. For example, it is debatable whether the trade preference program effectively enhances the genuine export competitiveness of developing countries. Also, despite preferential duty benefits, US fashion companies often hesitate to source more from trade preference partners due to concerns about a lack of critical infrastructure, limited production capacity, and political instability.

The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) in Pakistan has again directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to process all cases of textile companies received by the Export-Oriented Sector Registration Cell (ESRC) from the trade bodies and associations on fast-track basis for availing concessionary tariff regime of electricity, gas and RLNG.

Referring to eight cases of leading textile mills, the FTO declared that ultimately most of the textile cases were forwarded by the FBR to the Commerce Ministry after the intervention of the FTO office.

According to the FTO’s order, the FBR is directed to ensure that all cases received by the ESRC from the trade/associations are processed on fast track, conducting proceedings on a day-to-day basis and cases of all genuine exporters (as per FBR record) are immediately forwarded to the Ministry of Commerce. The FBR's ESRC should strictly confine itself to the dictates of circular number 4 of 2020 and process the cases without any delay, forestalling any irretrievable loss to the exporters.The FBR has been also directed to ensure that the discrepancies if any observed by the ESCR during the processing may be shared with the concerned field formations without delaying the process.

The export sector is the lifeline for Pakistan’s economy.

Berlin Fashion Summit will be held September 5 to September 7, 2022.

For the occasion, the sustainability conference will again open its doors for progressive minds to discuss the most urgent topics and present practical solutions for the industry. More than 50 speakers will join in 34 sessions to explore this season’s topic, Fashion for Positive Impact: Regenerative Transformation.

The conference will host, among others, a variety of presentation and discussion formats. Under the subject of regenerative transformation, the summit’s participants will explore how people and the planet depend on each other, and how fashion can build bridges between the biosphere, technosphere, and metasphere. The summit will also provide the platform for interdisciplinary collaborations towards the common good to create a positive impact.

This season, the program features six thematic blocks, addressing different facets of regenerative transformation in fashion. The first day tackles how fashion can make a positive impact in the biosphere, focusing on the planet and its communities. Here, topics such as regenerative materials, restoring biodiversity and ecosystems will be highlighted, creating a new culture of inclusion and equity, and reimagining workspaces as ecosystems to grow healthy creative economies.On day two, the attention will focus on transforming the technosphere and metasphere, looking at tech innovations and digitization as areas to apply regenerative transformation.

The textile business situation is worse in Asia than in the rest of the world. So says a survey by the International Textile Manufacturers Federation.

The textile machinery segment is the only segment still in positive territory.Business expectations have also turned negative for the first time since the start of the survey in May 2021. South-East Asia and South America are relatively more optimistic, the downstream segments as well. Business expectations of world order intake are weakening globally but still in positive territory. Here too expectations have turned negative in all textile segments except for textile machinery producers.

A difficult period is expected ahead. Order intake is deteriorating in all Asian regions and stable in North America, South America, and Africa. Order backlog has been slightly decreasing in the past few months, from a maximum of 3.1 months in March 2022 to 2.9 months in July. It is expected to continue falling until March 2023. The capacity utilization rate has been stagnating since the beginning of 2022 on an average. This indicator is rising in Africa and North and Central America. South Asia reports a strong decrease in capacity utilization, so do fiber and home textile producers as well as spinners. While high prices for raw materials, energy, and logistics are still regarded as major supply side concerns, they have somewhat eased compared to May 2022. The prospects of weakening demand caused by surging inflation are worrisome.