In Mauritius, sustainability is commonplace among manufacturers, both because companies adopt more eco-friendly policies and because resources aren’t easy to come by. Mauritius’ main markets for its textiles and apparel are the US, UK, France and South Africa. Denim is the third major apparel product after T-shirts and shirts. Other products for which the country is known are knitwear, casual shirts, formal wear, swimwear and sweaters.

Mauritius boasts of having one of the best infrastructures in Africa. It has quite a few vertically integrated units. The country is developing the capability and capacity to cater to the needs of global buyers especially US buyers. The tiny isle off the coast of Africa enjoys the benefits of African Growth and Opportunity Act, a trade privilege program that means it can ship products to the US duty free. And Mauritius enjoys a similar perk with Europe.

These trade agreements position Mauritius to serve global brands that can ship to key customers in both regions without tariffs straining margins that are already tight. In terms of communication, credibility in terms of delivery, Mauritius is faster than Asian countries. The country may not yet be making headlines as a supplier of denim, but that’s due to a lack of open-mindedness about new sourcing locales.

Romanian textile unions met in Bucharest to debate the road towards an organised workforce with living wages and collective agreements, together with global brands H&M and Inditex, their key suppliers, employer associations and the government. The seminar, held in Bucharest on January 22-23, 2019 was a part of an EU-funded project.

Christina Hajagos-Clausen, Textile Director, IndustriALL showcased how unions work with global brands, the Bangladesh Accord, how GFAs can be used in organising; and the Action – Collaboration – Transformation (ACT) initiative to achieve living wages. Representatives from GFA partners H&M and Inditex, also members of ACT, explained how they in cooperation with unions solve problems when they occur and promote functioning labour-management relations and collective bargaining.

The trade deficit will be a challenge for Vietnam this year. Vietnam still depends on imported materials, machines, equipment and spare parts. The nation’s export turnover in January this year was down 1.3 per cent year on year, while imports increased by 3.1 per cent.

In January, export value of key products sharply reduced. Exports of phones and devices were down 27.5 per cent and exports of electronics and computers decreased by five per cent. The value of machines, equipment, parts and tools which were imported was up 3.8 per cent.

This year, the implementation of free trade agreements and major agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement will create a new wave of investment in Vietnam by domestic and foreign businesses looking to take advantage of new opportunities. Therefore, imports of machinery and equipment for projects and purchases of materials for production will increase.

The growth of the textile and garment industry is seen as unpredictable this year. With the trade war, if there is a 15 per cent tax increase, the competition in the market is expected to be very fierce. In the face of the situation, the target has been adjusted to a growth rate of eight to nine per cent.

The operating income of VF Corporation in the third quarter of fiscal 2019 soared by 30 per cent to $656 million, including a $7 million contribution from acquisitions net of divestitures. On a reported basis, the company’s operating margin increased 15.0 per cent to $592 million. Its gross margin from continuing operations rose to 51.9 per cent.

Excluding acquisitions net of divestitures, revenue increased by 7 per cent. International revenue hiked by 5 per cent including a 1-percentage point revenue growth contribution from acquisitions net of divestitures.

Revenue from active wear segment increased 16 per cent including a 25 per cent growth in Vans’ revenue. Revenue from outdoor segment increased by 11 per cent including a 14 per cent gain in The North Face brand revenue and a 4-percentage point revenue growth contribution from acquisitions.

According to Export Promotion Bureau, Bangladesh garment exports to non-traditional market soared by 36.21percent in the first six months of the current fiscal 2018-19 compared to six months of the previous fiscal year. The earnings from exports stood at $ 2.90 billion during this period to new markets compared to $2.13 billion at the same time during last fiscal. The country’s overall exports rose by 8.76 percent to $ 30.61 billion last year while the pace of growth further rose to 15.65 percent or at $ 17.08 billion in first six month of the current fiscal.

Exports to non-traditional markets phenomenally increased in recent time mainly riding on duty free entry of Bangladesh garment to a host of countries not were on the list of major export destinations in one hand and boosted by financial export incentives on the other.

Meanwhile exports to traditional markets like the USA, EU, Canada and others significantly grew after a slow down mainly in recent years for recession at buyers end and recent trade war between UNA and China encouraged many buyers to switch their import orders to Bangladesh. EPB data showed exports to newly growing markets like Australia, Brazil, Chile, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa and Turkey are showing stronger growth owing to 5 percent export incentives.

The UK Parliament’s Environment Audit Select Committee (EAC) released the first findings, detailing the winners and losers of the nation’s fashion industry in terms of sustainability and environmental impact. The committee began its investigation by sending written requests to 16 of the U.K.’s most impactful fashion retailers, as determined by market share, along with four online-only retailers after reports surfaced of “illegally low wages” in fast fashion supply chains. In Leicester, northwest of London, wages for garment workers can run as low as 3.50 pounds ($4.57) per hour, according to the committee’s findings.

All but one of the retailers that were contacted responded to the EAC, the lone holdout being high-end footwear retailer Kurt Geiger. However, in the eyes of the committee, the responses were all but equal. To illustrate, the EAC’s report separated each retailer into three categories: “less engaged,” “moderately engaged” and “engaged.” Amazon UK, Boohoo, Missguided, TJX and both JD Sports and Sports Direct received lowest marks of all surveyed, with the committee relegating to the “less engaged” tier. Notably, Amazon’s U.K. operation was called out for its tepid response to the program despite the company’s increasingly large role in the local fashion industry.

The other retailers in the committee’s bottom tier were more notable for their sloppy or seemingly insincere efforts to join programs like SCAP—a U.K. organisation dedicated to reducing fashion’s environmental footprint—and the committee recommended that these organisations begin to prioritise their efforts to do so.

Garment factories in the UK don’t always pay minimum wages. Under payment is rife and goes hand in hand with a culture of fear and intimidation in the textile industry. At a time when NGOs from the West are campaigning about the lack of living wage in Bangladesh, the fact that UK workers making clothing for western brands are not even being paid a minimum wage, let alone a living wage, illustrates the complexity of this issue.

Calls for textile reshoring have often been made on the assumption that bringing textile production back to the UK and other western nations will mean clothing is made in better working conditions and for better pay than in South East Asia.

In the meantime the uncertainty that has hung over the UK economy since the country voted to leave the European Union in a referendum two-and-a-half years ago continues. For the industry, the main areas of concern are the impact leaving the European Union could have on trade, investment and access to skilled international workers. The worst scenario for the fashion industry would be that the UK crashes out of the European Union with no deal at all. That would likely mean sharply higher import costs and could potentially lead to labor shortages and goods stuck outside ports of entry on both sides of the border.

The trade war between China and the United States is expected to favor Turkey and Vietnam. Turkish clothing exports are expected to rise ten per cent in 2019. In 2018, the country increased clothing exports by 3.6 per cent compared to the previous year.

The European Union continues to be the largest market for the Turkish clothing industry. In 2018, 71 per cent of its sales went to European countries. The only fear the Turkish sector has is a hard Brexit, which could put in check exports to the European Union.

Vietnam too is looking to improve its positioning by taking advantage of the bad relationships between the largest fashion consumer market and its main supplier. The Vietnamese textile and clothing industry plans to increase its exports by 11 per cent in 2019. Vietnam is about to sign a free trade agreement with the European Union, which would eliminate practically all existing tariffs in the exchange of goods between both parties.

Bangladesh also aims to take advantage of the trade conflict between the United States and China, and political tension between the European Union and Bangladesh. In the first half of fiscal year 2018-19, textile and clothing exports from Bangladesh grew by 14.42 per cent compared to the same period of the previous year. Clothing exports soared in these six months by 15.6 per cent.

Millions of workers in the Indian garment industry, many of them women, work from home. These women or girls are mainly from minority or marginalised communities. Each night after their children go to sleep, they spend hours at home, sewing, cutting and checking clothing given them by a garment factory contractor.

For each finished item, they earn less than a rupee. If they were at a factory, they would earn more and get overtime money, bonus and other benefits. But they cannot join a factory for one reason or the other. The price they pay for that is very low wages.

The Indian garment sector employs more than 12 million people in factories but millions more work from home. These workers are involved in the many stages of garment production from cutting sleeves to stitching buttons, embroidery, bead work and giving other finishing touches to items of clothing.

Up to 19 per cent of the workers are in the age group of 10 to 18 years. Eighty-five per cent of the workers exclusively work in supply chains for the export of clothing to the United States and the European Union. Besides being denied minimum wages, home workers have virtually no avenue to seek redress for abusive or unfair conditions.

Planet Textiles 2019, which will take place on June 22, 2019 in Barcelona at the giant ITMA event, will provide the basis for a new, practical ‘Blueprint’ for how the denim sector should operate in the next decade ahead. The event, held every four years becomes the meeting point for the global textile industry. The textile industry ‘Olympics’, as it’s often known, was last held in Barcelona back in 2011 when it attracted over 100,000 visitors from 138 countries and is where the very latest advances in textile technology are revealed.

The conference will be held in the CC5 convention centre inside the Fira Barcelona near to Hall 3 and visitors will benefit from a heavily discounted 7-day access to the ITMA exhibition through a joint ticketing scheme with the ITMA organisers.