Shanghai Municipal Commission of Commerce has informed that the 2021 Autumn/Winter Shanghai Fashion Week will kick off on April 6 to further energize the consumer market.

As per Global Times, retail sales in Shanghai grew by a 48.6 percent year-on-year in the first two months of 2021, higher than the country's average pace in the same period, said the commission.

Over 60 percent of the brands participating in the fashion week had seen marked sales growth in 2020, with nearly 40 percent having opened new bricks-and-mortar stores.

With strict epidemic prevention and control measures in place, next month's event will launch over 100 new products offline. It will also launch products online thorugh a newly-created event called "Shanghai Fashion & Lifestyle Carnival" to promote domestic brands and designers.

Debuted in 2003, Shanghai Fashion Week has been a significant fashion showcase, trade, and exchange platform in Asia. It went fully digital after the COVID-19 pandemic a year ago and was rebooted offline in October last year.

IKEA's shopping malls business Ingka Centres has bought the shops at Aura Mall in the centre in Toronto, Canada as part of the furniture group's strategy shift towards inner cities.

It bought the mall, which has been struggling to attract tenants and visitors, from private equity firm KingSett Capital.

Ingka Centres, which has 46 malls anchored by IKEA stores across Europe, Russia and China, plans to redevelop the ground and first floors of the building into an IKEA store that would open around the turn of the year.

It will be the first inner-city IKEA store in Canada. The building's remaining mall space will mark Ingka Centres' entry into Canada.

Located at the base of the Aura skyscraper, the property currently has around 12,000 square metres (14,350 square yards) of leasable area across three floors. Ingka Centres is scouting for inner-city property as part of IKEA's shift in recent years towards the centres of large cities, away from out-of-town, in response to the shift to online shopping and other changing shopping behaviours. So far, such locations are leased.

It has earlier made two such acquisitions that it is in the process of developing: the King's Mall in London and the 6x6 mall in San Francisco.

Ingka Centres is part of Ingka Group which owns most IKEA stores worldwide. It did not disclose the purchase price for the Toronto property.

The apparel and accessory exports of China grew by 50 per cent Y-o-Y during January-February 2021, reports the General Administration of Customs, China (GACC).

As per the statistics, China exported $ 24.05 billion worth of garments and accessories in January-February ’21 period as compared to $16.03 billion in the corresponding period of 2020.

The surge has been witnessed despite a lot of factories remaining shut due to Chinese New Year holidays that fell in February.

As far as textile export of China is concerned, it valued $22.13 billion in the first two months of 2021 as compared to $13.76 billion in the first two months of 2020, noting 60.80 per cent yearly increase.

Of total textile exports, fabrics contributed $9.64 billion; yarns valued $ 1.96 billion and other textile products clocked $10.53 billion.

China concluded 2020 with its textile exports reaching $153.84 billion – growing 29.20 per cent on yearly basis – and garment and accessories exports contracting by 6.40 per cent to $ 137.38 billion.

Beating its competitors in the US market, became the largest denim exporter to the country in 2020.

As per Textile Today, Bangladesh is also the number one denim products supplier to the European Union, which imported over 65 per cent of the clothing products of Bangladesh.

According to the US Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA), Bangladesh’s earning from its denim exports to the US declined by 4 per cent ito $561 million in 2020 from $585 million in 2019.

However, Bangladesh’s market share in US denim products rose to 20.03 per cent in 2020 taking the first position from Mexico. Mexico holds the second position with a 16.74 per cent market share followed by China 11.85 per cent.In the last five years, Bangladesh recorded a 7.18 percentage point gain to 20.03 per cent from 12.85 per cent in 2016.

The country holds a 29 per cent market share of total EU denim markets as of 2020. According to statistics from the Directorate-General of the European Commission, Eurostat, Bangladesh has earned over €1 billion from exporting denim products to EU countries during the January-December period of 2020, which was €1.27 billion in the previous year.

A strong backward linkage industry especially in fabrics manufacturing and washing helped Bangladesh to become a leading exporter of denim products. Exporters also invested a lot in research and innovation, product development and technological upgradation, which paved their way to growth.

Branding of Bangladeshi denim products through expositions also helped the country attract the attention of global buyers.

Steve Lamar, CEO and President, American Apparel & Footwear Association President welcomed the passage of the PPP Extension Act of 2021, which will extend the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) application period beyond the March 31, 2021 sunset date.

Lamar said, giving small business more time to file PPP applications is essential for our industry, and our workers, to make it through to the other side of the pandemic. This is an important signal from the federal government that they will continue to support American businesses and American workers until the economy can sustain itself.

Earlier this month, AAFA called on Congressional leadership to lead swift bipartisan action on PPP extension to provide relief to America’s small businesses that led to today’s passage of the PPP Extension Act. Beyond stimulus, AAFA continues to remind Congress that the industry needs legislation to build a backstop for trade credit insurance and create limited liability protections, both of which are needed to sustain the industry's recovery.

Amazon has urged the Indian government not to change e-commerce foreign investment rules until investigations into its business practices had been concluded.

As per an Economic Times report, the government has been planning to revise e-commerce foreign investment rules for weeks. The last time they were changed, in 2018, it forced Amazon and Flipkart to rework their business structures and soured trade relations between India and the United States.

Last month a Reuters report, based on internal Amazon documents, revealed that the US firm had for years given preferential treatment to a small group of sellers on its platform, giving them discounted fees and helping one cut special deals with big tech manufacturers.

Amazon said, CCI and the Enforcement Directorate were probing the allegations and it would be premature to make any policy change until those proceedings have concluded. It added that it welcomed the government consultation process and the foreign investment policy needs to be stable and predictable for investor confidence.

More foreign retail brands were criticized by the Chinese social media in the wake of Beijing's propaganda offensive against H&M over the Swedish company's previously aired concerns on Xinjiang.

Earlier, Chinese state media had singled out H&M for making a statement against forced labor in Xinjiang, and that it did not source products from the Chinese region.

A social media frenzy ignited by a government call to stop foreign brands from tainting China's name sent internet users looking for other previously issued statements by foreign retailers on Xinjiang.

Nike Inc, which said earlier in an undated statement expressed concerns about reports of forced labour, came under fire. And so did German sportswear firm Adidas.

Many internet users vowed to stop buying Nike and support local brands such as Li Ning and Anta, while others bluntly told Adidas to leave China. Internet users also targeted the Better Cotton Initiative (BCI), which in October had suspended its approval of cotton sourced from Xinjiang for the 2020-2021 season, citing concerns over human rights.

As per data compiled by Local Data Company, better known as LDC, UK could see closure of as many as 18,000 stores in 2021.

As per Apparel Resources, UK high-street retailers and those in shopping malls are still battling the crisis. After a disappointing holiday season late last year, 2021 too began with the fall of mighty retail giants like the Arcadia Group and Debenhams.

Even other British clothing brands like Apricot too have been struggling. Apricot recently got approval from creditors for its company voluntary arrangement (CVA).

A data, compiled with PwC, reportedly, found that of the 11,000 stores that closed down in 2020, 9,877 were retail units run by chains, while 1,442 were independent stores, restaurants and leisure outlets.

The number 9,877 is the highest on record so far – equivalent to 48 stores shutting down every day.

With vaccine now getting rolled out at a faster pace and Government committed to help the retailers, one just hopes situation too improves fast and 2021 doesn’t turn out to be as bad as predicted.

Despite a decrease in production of 5 Mb compared with the preceding year, US cotton shipments have grown by 15.25 million bales this year, says the latest USDA report. China accounted for nearly half of US exports in the first five months with its overall import estimate at 10.5 MB bales, the maximum for seven years.

According to the report, Chinese demand is estimated to rebound by 5.5Mb and hit 38.5Mb in the past year, which account for more than one-third of global usage in 2020-21. China’s demand for US cotton has largely been driven by the SOEs, which accounted for more than 3/4 the overall import of US cotton by 2020/21.

Despite US prices being higher compared to Brazil and India, US sales and shipments to China through December exceeded previous year by more than 2.3Mb. Australia, another significant supplier to China, witnessed exportable supplies decimated by a 2020 drought. Like the US, Australia is a significant supplier of high-quality cotton to the world’s largest importer.

Boohoo has slashed the number of suppliers to 78 approved factories in 100 locations, down from an estimated 200 main manufacturers.

That reduction comes after the majority of its suppliers were audited twice by two independent companies via unannounced visits over the last eight months. Boohoo said the resulting review had identified many failings, alongside recommended improvements to the firm’s related corporate governance, compliance and monitoring processes".

Group CEO John Lyttle said the review had identified significant and clearly unacceptable issues and that it was clear that the brand needs to go further and faster to improve our governance, oversight and compliance.

The published supplier list comes after damaging newspaper reports last year highlighted the firm’s controversial supply chain in Leicester where factory staff were allegedly paid less than minimum wages.

Boohoo stressed that the reports showed it had not deliberately allowed poor conditions and low pay to exist within its supply chain and it did not intentionally profit from them and its business model is not founded on exploiting workers in Leicester”.

Lyttle said the group is implementing necessary enhancements to its supplier audit and compliance procedures, and the board’s oversight of these matters will increase significantly.