Asia Pacific Rayon (APR) plans to increase its production capacity to 600,000 tonne to meet the strong growth potential of viscose staple fiber (VSF) and strengthen its market position in Indonesia and export markets across the region.

The additional capacity will be achieved through improved optimization and efficiencies, and by adding 300,000-tonne viscose production facility in Pangkalan Kerinci – Riau, Indonesia where APR is co-located with sister company and fiber supplier APRIL Group.

The expansion will utilize APRIL’s current rayon grade AE pulp capacity from existing pulp production lines, with fiber supply sourced from APRIL’s existing responsibly managed renewable fiber plantations in compliance with internationally recognized forest certification standards and its sustainability policy and in keeping with the recently announced April 2030 commitments and targets.

Construction of the additional APR production lines is scheduled to commence in the second half of 2021 and will include features such as a chemical recovery process upgrade, slush-pulp processing installation and other investments aimed at reducing APR’s energy use and environmental footprint. Upon the additional lines’ completion in 2023, APR will be the world’s largest single-site integrated viscose manufacturing facility, seamlessly integrating dissolving wood pulp from APRIL’s renewable fiber plantations.

In the webinar titled ‘The Perfect Storm: Future-Proofing Your Fashion Business’, Michael Ho, Marketing & Brand Partnerships Manager, Zalora, described 2020 as a year of expansion. The webinar was a part of the three fashion-related webinars hosted by the Online HKTDC International Sourcing Show recently. Ho said, as consumers were unable to travel during the pandemic, sales at most brand stores plummeted. This encouraged brands to scout for new sales channels. Zalora offered an attractive choice for such brands as it enabled them to cover losses from lack of physical sales but also increased average order frequency to 3.3 times a year.

Focus shifts to safety and comfort

The pandemic also forced industry leaders and consumers to shift focus from aesthetics to safety and comfort, said, Edwin Eeh, CEO, Hong Kong Research Institute of Textiles and Apparel (HKRITA) at a webinar tilted ‘What's In for Fashion: Sustainability is the New Normal?’ Consumers have also become more discerning about the materials used in their apparels and the production process, added Eeh. He advised all organizations to introduce practical innovations that can be adapted to the marketplace.

Humanity and morality to define future trends

Separation and loss experienced by many people in 2020 will define future fashion trends, pointed out Michael Leow, Marketing Head-Asia Pacific, Fashion Snoops at the webinar ‘The Visionary Fashion Trends: Lifestyle and Retail’. Leow explained, the four key trends for Spring/Summer 2022 will all be related to the restoration of humanity and morality. The first of this theme will be ‘Essential’ focusing on the emerging simplicity in people’s choices. The second theme ‘Nourish’ will focus on the well-being of consumers; the third ‘Liberte’ will reflect on their desire to be free from the pandemic induced restrictions while the last theme ‘Rebirth’ will focus on brands’ commitment towards environment and fair trade practices.

Matching customers’ requirements

To succeed, brands need to match their products with consumers’ tastes, said Jaana Jatyri, CEO, Trendstop, a trend and consumer taste forecasting agency. Jatyri predicts the industry will lose 50 per cent business and jobs in the next five year and advised fashion suppliers to use trend data to understand latest colors, prints and graphics, materials, shapes and detailing. This will ensure brands produce only items that consumers prefer buying and prevent avoid unwanted products from being dumping into the landfills.

In all, the Online HKTDC International Sourcing Show hosted a total of 17 webinars attended by over 60 industry luminaries.

The PVH Foundation, PVH Corp’s philanthropic fund dedicated to nonprofit donations and volunteer programs plans to support the annual emergency relief efforts of Americares, a health-focused relief and development organization. As a Sourcing Journal report says, the fund will ensure PVH readiness for emergencies, including pre-positioning relief supplies in disaster-prone countries. It will also help the organization maintain an international roster of on-call disaster response experts besides supporting their need assessments and deploying emergency response teams to disaster zones.

This initiative is a part of PVH’s Forward Fashion corporate responsibility strategy that besides eliminating wastes aims to form new collaborations to fight against effects of climate change on individuals around the world. Americares is involved in resolving over 30 natural disasters and humanitarian crises worldwide each year. The organization establishes long-term recovery projects and brings disaster preparedness programs to vulnerable communities. So far, it has provided more than $19 billion in aid to 164 countries.

It first partnered with the PVH Foundation earlier this year by providing bottled water, life-saving medicines, PPE and other essential relief items to families and local health centers affected by the severe winter weather in Texas.

Fraud-hit textile and yarn manufacturer Sintex Industries filed for bankruptcy after financial creditor Invesco Asset Management filed a suit against it for Rs 15.4 crore default in September 2019. As per VC Circle, Sintex Industries' subsidiaries include BVM Overseas, Sintex-BAPL and publicly listed Sintex Plastics Technology. In August last year, the non-bank lending arm of global private equity firm KKR approached the tribunal against a subsidiary of Sintex Plastics Technology to recover a debt it had sanctioned two years ago.

The unit called Sintex-BAPLowed KKR a principal sum of Rs 1,190 crore as well as interest. Sintex Industries said it has been working with lenders to bring a resolution plan in place for its business activities. Founded in 1931 at Kalol in Gujarat, it is a diversified company with its textile segment offering fabric and yarn.

For the December quarter of 2020, Sintex Industries posted a net loss of Rs 215 crore as against Rs 293 crore loss in the same quarter in 2019 and Rs 239 crore loss in the September quarter. Its total income improved to Rs 530 crore for the December quarter in 2020, from Rs 430 crore a year ago and Rs 323 crore in the September quarter.

Maharashtra has imposed stringent curbs on fashion and e-commerce for 15 days to slow rising coronavirus infections. Maharashtra accounts for about a quarter of India's 13.5 million COVID-19 cases. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray ordered most establishments and public places to close in the state except those which are deemed essential, including grocery shops, hospitals, banks and stock exchanges.

The curbs are likely to hit auto companies like Tata Motors, Bajaj Auto and Mahindra & Mahindra which operate factories in the state. E-commerce deliveries will be allowed but only for essential products, the government said, a decision that will affect deliveries and online ordering on companies like Amazon.com Inc and Walmart's Flipkart.

The restrictions will jolt businesses in Maharashtra but also risk having a broader impact on the Indian economy. The state accounts for nearly 15 per cent of India's gross domestic product, making it crucial for the country's economic recovery after months of slowdown.

Maharashtra had already shut down restaurants, bars, gyms, theatres and non-essential stores last week, a move some industry groups had warned will cause economic losses of billions of dollars.

Lenzing is launching a certification and licensing service for the Veocel™ brand to elevate supply chain transparency for nonwoven fibers. The Lenzing e-branding Service provides the Veocel™ brand’s partners with a platform to showcase their use of sustainable, high-quality and ethically sourced materials.

The Lenzing e-branding service allowing producers, retailers and brand owners from hygiene, beauty and home care industry, to certify their use of Veocel™ branded fibers and develop co-branding campaigns that improve the value of their products.

First launched in 2018 for the textile industry, the Lenzing E-Branding Service unifies registration, application and approval in a state-of-the-art online system designed to eliminate the use of paper and reduce response times, with the aim to enhance efficiency by digitizing workflow. The system’s early success and positive feedback made the expansion to the VEOCEL™ brand a natural next step for the industry-leading platform.

As a digital hub for Veocel™ brand partners, the platform includes features to apply for new licenses, monitor application status, and manage existing licenses. Simultaneously, the platform will act as a support portal, showcasing the latest branding guidelines and support for Veocel™ brand certified products.

Indonesian garment companies collaborated with South African micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to establish a textile joint venture company, Pan Africa. Pan Africa is a joint venture between Indonesia's leading garment company, Pan Brothers Tbk and South African MSME, Faithfulness. The company will import semi-finished personal protective equipment (PPE) garments from Indonesia and then finalize the processing at the Johannesburg factory.

At its inauguration ceremony, Indonesia’s ambassador to South Aricca, Al Farisi lauded the company as an ideal arrangement of mutually beneficial partnership. Anggun Paramita Mahidi, Head, Indonesia Trade Promotion Center in Johannesburg, emphasized that the success of the establishment of this company can serve as a precedent and pilot project for other Indonesian products, especially PPE, to enter and be accepted by the South African market.

Anne Patricia Sutanto, Deputy Managing Director, Pan Brothers Indonesia, said, the opening of the Pan Africa factory would be the start of deeper future cooperation.

H&M has introduced a new brand concept known as ‘Innovation Stories’. The concept includes launch of multiple collections in 2021. Each collection will emphasize on the importance of adopting forward-thinking sustainability processes, says the brand.

The first collection, Science Story, pays tribute to innovators of future fabrications. The collection introduces new materials such as EVO by Fulgar, a bio-based yarn derived from castor oil, and Desserto, which is a plant-based alternative to leather, produced from cactus plants. It includes key womenswear pieces like a wide-leg bright white jeans with removable double waistband, a lightly cropped chalk-white shirt with oversized breast-pocket and a cuffed tracksuit.

In its 2020 Sustainability Performance Report, H&M had announced its intention to use 30 per cent recycled materials by 2025. Currently, the brand uses 64.5 per cent recycled materials.

To overcome the challenge of high yarn price, Gujarat Spinners Association assured AEPC of supplying yarn to apparel manufacturers in Tirupur. Saurin Parikh, President, Gujarat Spinners Association, said in the last 20-25 days prices had reduced, many countries, excluding Bangladesh, stopped importing from India.

Currently, Tirupur is largest consumer of yarn in India with 40 per cent consumers. AEPC invited Gujarat spinners to tap the prospect in Tirupur and join hands with knitwear exporters of this apparel hub for joint sustainable growth. For last few days, there has been lot of hue and cry in Tirupur as mills and traders had increased yarn prices in April also, while it was decided in a meeting that there will be no hike in yarn price during the April month.

Bangladesh apparel exports to the US surged to $194.08 million SME of garments in February 2021 against $89.73 SME of garments in the same period of last year. As per Apparel Resources, the value of US’ apparel imports from Bangladesh fell by 8.70 percent in February ’21 on a Y-o-Y basis. The country imported $ 5.39 billion worth of garments in February this year as against the $ 5.91 billion in the same month of 2020.

However, the import increased in volume terms by 3.20 percent to 2,069.78 million SME of garments during the month. Other exporters such as Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc also noted growth in volume-wise apparel shipment to the US, while China and Pakistan upped their shipment in value and volume both terms.

Apparel exports by India, Vietnam and Indonesia to the US declined in both value-wise and volume-wise whereas exports by Bangladesh grew in volume.. Bangladesh’s apparel exports declined in terms of value to $480.98 million in February’21 against $528.47 million in the same month of the previous year.