According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, the country’s apparel and textile exports grew by over 40 per cent in the first two months of this year, due to the low base effect caused by the pandemic.

As per a China Textile report, the total value of China’s imports and exports in the first two months of 2021 increased by 32.2 per cent to 5.44 trillion yuan. Of this, exports increased by 50.1 per cent to 3.05 trillion yuan while imports increased by 14.5 per cent to 2.38 trillion yuan.

In the first two months of 2021, the total value of imports and exports in goods trade reached USD 834.49 billion, up 41.2 percent over the same period last year, of which exports reached USD 468.87 billion, up 60.6 percent, and imports reached USD 365.62 billion, up 22.2 percent.

In dollar terms, the accumulative exports of textile and apparel during the first two months of 2021 increased by 55 per cent to reach $46.18 billion. Of this, textile exports increased by 60.8 per cent to $22.13 billion while apparel exports increased by 50 per cent to $24.05 billion.

Renowned for its pioneering seamless crinkle stretch Maxxam® fabric, innovative textile producer Maxxam Textiles , is launching Eco-Maxxamfeaturing Q-Nova, a state-of-the-art recycled nylon from Italy which aims to reduce CO2 emissions, consume less water and use renewable energy.

For making this yarn, Q-Nova utilizes an environmentally sustainable recycled polyamide 6 yarn made from industrial waste and carries the Oeko-Tex Standard 100 and Global Recycled Standard (GRS) Certification.

In the last seven years, Maxxam Textiles has acted as its own converter working with partner factories based in the UK to produce the finished fabric. With a huge revival in popularity from swimwear brands including Bond Eye, YOU Swim and many other brands, the new Eco-Maxxam option now offers an even more sustainable choice for swimwear, activewear, leisure and loungewear, womenswear, and kidswear.

The US Cotton Trust Protocol has added Advance Denim as its new member. The brand’s membership marks a significant step in their ambitious sustainability program which employs advanced technology and innovation to minimize the manufacturer’s environmental impact. It aims to ensure transparent supply chain for its customers by sourcing for more sustainable fibers.

The Trust Protocol is a new initiative that provides fashion brands and retailers with the critical assurances they need to show the cotton fiber element of their supply chain is more responsibly grown. It works by providing member brands such as Gap Inc and Next access to the Trust Protocol credit system to validate consumption of cotton and associated credit; and to aggregate year-over-year data in six sustainability areas: water use, greenhouse gas emissions, energy use, soil carbon, soil loss, and land use efficiency.

Mills and manufacturer members of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol play a key role in providing this more secure and transparent supply chain to brands and retailers. As a member, Advance Denim can now provide its customers with all-important confidence about the U.S. cotton in their sourcing mix. Advance Denim joins over 200 other mills and manufacturers as members of the US Cotton Trust Protocol.

Pakistan textile and apparel exports grew by 11 per cent year-on-year in January ‘21.

As per a report by the Textile Network, the country’s dependence on fiber imports is threatening its domestic processing industry at the time when prices of all types of fibers are soaring across the globe. Its previous year’s polyester fiber supply was heavily impacted by the more than two months outage while cotton crop failure lifted polyester and viscose demand for cotton replacement.

This caused its textile imports to soar by 50 percent in January with raw cotton imports expanding 15 percent to 113,074 tonne. In light of improved fiber demand, the Pakistani textile sector continued to invest in capacity expansions along the chain.

Picanol Group has acquired a minority stake in Rieter Holding AG, amounting to a total of 467,236 shares for a price of €45.4 million.

With this stake in Rieter Holding AG, Picanol Group aims to further diversify its activitiesin the textile industry and secure a stable shareholding for Rieter Holding AG in the long term.

Rieter is the world’s leading supplier of systems for short-staple fiber spinning. Based in Winterthur (Switzerland), the company develops and manufactures machinery, systems and components used to convert natural and man-made fibers and their blends into yarns. Rieter is the only supplier worldwide to cover spinning preparation processes as well as all 4 end spinning processes currently established on the market. Furthermore, Rieter is a leader in the field of precision winding machines. With 15 manufacturing locations in 10 countries, the company employs a global workforce of some 4,420 people.

Picanol Group is a diversified industrial group active worldwide in the fields of mechanical engineering, agriculture, food, energy, water management, the efficient (re)use of natural resources and other industrial markets. The group's products are used in a variety of applications, industrial and consumer markets. The group has approximately 7,000 employees worldwide and it is listed on Euronext Brussels (PIC) via Picanolnv.

Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The first round of seminars will be held in March during the International Sourcing Show and will include sessions such as ‘International Sourcing Outlook’ and ‘Survive and Thrive: Leveraging End-to-end E-commerce Solutions.’

Furthermore, the show will continue to feature Click2Match, an AI-powered online business matching platform. Buyers and suppliers can use the tool to enjoy functions such as a meeting planner, video meetings, live chat and e-business card exchange, helping them to overcome barriers under the pandemic and build business connections around the world.

As COVID-led disruptions have provided them with a better visibility on their supply chains andenabled them to predict demand trends effectively, retailers plan to refurbish their supply chain strategies in the next three years, says a new report by the Capgemini Research Institute.

Ramping technical capabilities for accurate demand prediction

Over 65 per cent of retailers are likely to change their strategies significantly in the next three years and embed resiliency in their operations, adds the report. However, 23 per cent of consumer product organizations and 28 per cent believe, their supply chain is flexible enough to adapt to the organization’s changing business needs.

These organizations are currently ramping up their technical capabilities to predict demand accurately and plan their supplies in a better manner. Around 85 per cent of these companies faced disruptions due to COVID-induced lockdowns which not only halted their raw material supplies but also disrupted production lines and go-to-market route for consumer goods companies.

Challenges in product and demand planning

It took almost three months for 63 per cent of consumer products companies and 71 per cent of retailers to recover from the disruptions and normalize their supply chains. Around 50 per cent of Indian companies took 3-6 months to recover from the pandemic effects. These companies faced challenges spanning demand planning, anticipating consumer demand and over-reliance on global supply chains.

Over two-thirds of organizations faced difficulties in product planning as they did not have accurate information on the fluctuating customer demand during the pandemic, adds the research. Around 73 per cent of the organizations could not predict demand as they lacked data on fluctuating demand. This led to over 65 per cent organizations planning to organize supply chains according to demand patterns, product value and regional dimensions post pandemic. Over 50 per cent plan to rely on analytics and AI-machine learning for demand forecasting in future.

Focus on local supply chains

COVID-19 has also highlighted the importance of local suppliers and manufacturing base. In the next three years, retailers plan to restrict their reliance on global suppliers to just 25 per cent of their capacity. This localization trend is also catching in Indiawith 73 per cent of organizations investing in regionalizing and localizing their supplier base; and 55 per cent of them regionalizing and localizing their manufacturing base,

Significance of digital investments grows

Demand visibility was also one of the challenges faced by 75 per cent of companies during the period. According to the report, these companies were compelled to increase or decrease production capacity due the pandemic. Over 60 per cent of organizations in India lost sales due to stockouts, adds the report. . Organizations now understand the significance of digital investments in improving visibility.

As per the report, around 58 per cent of retailers and 61 per cent of consumer product organizations plan to digitize their supply chains post pandemic. Around 47 per cent of them plan to invest in automation, 42 per cent plan to invest in robotics and 42 per cent in artificial intelligence. Around 64 per cent of these organizations also plan use artificial intelligence and machine learning across transportation and pricing optimization respectively.

As per USDA, global cotton consumption is expected to grow by 4.1 per cent in 2021-22 season, substantially above the long-term average rate of 1.7 per cent This will be the second consecutive year when world consumption will exceed production.

World cotton stocks are expected to reduce by 3.2 million bales, according to the initial world and US cotton outlook for the 2021-22 season released by USDA in February at the Agricultural Outlook Forum.

Meanwhile, world cotton production is expected to rise by 4.7 per cent with the most significant year-over-year growth in Pakistan, Australia, Brazil, the United States, and West Africa, the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the USDA said in its March 2021 report 'Cotton: World Markets and Trade'.

Overall, strong cotton consumption growth in 2021-22 and tightening stocks are expected to support prices with the A-Index forecast up 7 cents to 90 cents/pound for the marketing year id.

China’s 2021-22 imports are forecast at 11.0 million bales, unchanged from the previous year’s level, which was the highest level in 7 years. Further growth in yarn and fabric production, coupled with lower domestic production, is expected to maintain strong imports in addition to the State Reserve maintaining an optimal level of government-held stocks comprised of both imports and domestic supplies. China’s consumption is projected to increase at a rate below the world average due to above average growth in 2020-21.

Archroma, a global leader in specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions, and Jeanologia, world leader in sustainable and efficient technology development have collaborated to launch of ‘Pad-Ox G2 Cold’, a water-saving dyeing process at room temperature for casual looks.

Archroma initially introduced its eco-advanced Pad-Ox dyeing process for woven fabrics, and then used it as part of its Advanced Denim concept. The idea was fairly simple, yet technically revolutionary at the time. By combining the oxidation and fixation steps, it is possible to shorten the dyeing process and thus realize substantial resource savings in water, wastewater, cotton waste, and energy.

Archroma and Jeanologia have decided to team up and combine their expertise in sustainable dyeing and finishing technologies. The objective of the project was to improve the Pad-Ox dyeing process even further, in particular in one area that still offered room for positive impact: temperature and fastnesses. After several months of development, they have come up with a way to apply the Pad-Ox dyeing process at room temperature, whilst still improving fastnesses and allowing higher contrasts after washdown. A binder-free technology to obtain end articles that are softer and have greater color durability to repetitive washing and solidity against rubbing than other wash-out processes.

The new ‘Pad-Ox G2 Cold’ dyeing process works thanks to the insertion of very small machinery into the existing finishing range process, using cold processing and thus operating with much less water, carbon footprint and energy than traditional benchmark fabric finishing processes, whilst retaining the water and other resource savings offered by the Pad-Ox technology.

B.I.G. Yarns, a division of Beaulieu international group, has launched EqoCycle, a fully recyclable PA6 yarn with 75 per cent recycled content, offering the same high-quality performance of virgin PA6 yarn.

As per a SRTEPC report, the new recycled yarn is based on post-industrial waste and supports contract, automotive and residential carpet manufacturers in reducing the ecological footprint of their end products.

EqoCycle is made with recycled granulates derived from pre-consumer recycled and regenerated PA6, certified by Control Union for Global Recycled Standard (GRS) Certification. The use of less virgin materials implicates a decrease of fossil fuels by 58 per cent and a 27 per cent decrease in energy consumption. On top, EqoCycle yarns allow a reduction of 37 per cent of CO2 eq./kg compared to the fossil based yarns. The environmental impacts of EqoCycle with 75 per cent recycled content were calculated through an LCA analysis, verified according to ISO 14025 and EN 15804+A1 and published in an Environmental Product Declaration (EPD registration number S-P-02415).

EqoCycle joins EqoBalance PA6 which is based on biomass balance renewable resources, which offers up to 75 per cent reduction in CO2. Both exemplify the company’s on-going investment in developing new products that better serve customers’ needs in a sustainable way. B.I.G. Yarns fully pursues opportunities to support and solve the global environmental challenges through innovation, investment and collaboration, as part of its sincere belief in, and broader commitment to, social responsibility.