The rapid deterioration of relations with the US has caught Chinese businesses off guard. Many companies find it difficult to shoulder the huge additional costs and lack viable options to immediately modify their supply chains. Some export industries in China will be hit harder than others with electronics, computer circuit boards, computer parts, furniture, floor coverings and automotive parts disproportionately burdened by the increased tariffs.

The US has increased tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products from 10 to 25 per cent. Many businesses in China are already struggling to stay afloat since the US imposed 10 per cent tariffs in September last year. They say, while they tried to share these costs with their US counterparts, they will now have no choice but to pass on a significant proportion of the latest tariff increase to their customers. The uncertainty and volatility created by the trade war has led to businesses delaying investment and expansion plans. Some Chinese manufacturers have adjusted their supply chains by moving manufacturing and warehousing to south-east Asia, Mexico and Canada. But uprooting supply chains is costly, time-consuming and usually requires companies to obtain new approvals, comply with different regulatory regimes, secure real estate, build factories, hire workers and find new suppliers and service providers.

A Chinese firm, Pink Mango, will establish a garment factory in Rwanda. The investment will not only enable the central African country to increase its exports but also reduce imports of clothing as the country has been using fiscal measures to progressively discourage the import of secondhand clothes.

The factory to be located in a special economic zone will produce garments for both the domestic and export market. The Chinese firm is expected to provide 7,500 jobs for Rwandans by the fifth year and create cumulative export earnings of 20 million dollars over the next five years. It is also expected to build capacity and skills transfer to 500 workers of local garment cooperatives, who will also benefit from some of supply contracts through an outsourcing model. The investment of the Chinese firm will upskill Rwandans, giving them access to productive jobs and hence ensuring them have a better standard of living.

The United States has suspended duty-free status for Rwandan apparel products under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The reason was the African nation’s refusal to lower trade barriers for American-made clothing and shoes. Rwanda was among three East African nations—the others are Tanzania and Uganda--that banned imports of used clothing and shoes from the US.

Bonas will be present at Itma, Spain, June 20 to 26, 2019. A total of 10 jacquards will be operating on advanced weaving machines throughout the show. A multitude of colors in both warp and weft can be expertly intertwined to produce top quality flat woven carpet, as will be demonstrated by a Bonas Si21 on top of an Itema R9500-2 rapier machine.

Bonas supplies shedding systems to both the flat weaving and carpet weaving industries worldwide. Another Si21 on top of a Picanol Optimaxrapier will prove the smooth and low vibration running of this 21,504 hook jacquard at high speeds. Both jacquards are driven by the revolutionary smart drive, directly mounted to the loom and eliminating the need for a gear box. Total flexibility in both warp and weft is no longer a dream with the end-to-end control that Bonas will show with the successful Ji5 on a 190cm Smit ONE, without a warp beam. This provides total flexibility in weft and warp yarn composition, raw material and thickness. Difficult yarns in weft and simple yarns in warp without compromising on creativity allow the customer to always run at full speed without warp breakages or tension problems. Individual warp end control gives free rein to creativity.

A new study from DiCentral, a B2B managed services provider, and the Center for Supply Chain Research at Lehigh University, details the supply chain impact felt by retailers and manufacturers in the rapid development of e-commerce. The whitepaper, “Supply Chain Collaboration in Transformative Vertical Industries: Implications of Omnichannel and Dropshipping,” examines the motivations, challenges, benefits and supply chain implications of online shopping and home delivery from the perspectives of some 180 C-level executives and senior managers in retail and consumer product goods manufacturing.

Study participants shared the operational and financial implications associated with the shift from traditional brick-and-mortar stores to online e-commerce. These challenges are particularly acute in home delivery and order fulfillment models, where products are shipped directly from the manufacturers and the retailer no longer carries the physical inventory.

The study also shows efforts being made to keep up with the pace of change, the technological investments necessary to accommodate them, and the benefits and risks associated with this new online retail reality. The study suggests retailers and manufacturers who have adopted a high degree of digital collaboration have benefited most from dropshipping.

Spinnova has developed technology for spinning textile fibers out of wood and waste stream-based cellulose. Unlike the toxic viscose process, this sustainable process involves no dissolving or other complex chemicals. Also, the fiber has a uniquely small footprint and opportunities for circular fiber production are created. Likewise, this ground breaking technology also offers an alternative to the use of cotton, which is a strain to both land and table waters. This is resource efficiency at its best and also creates a value-added product that is attractive to the consumer, while mitigating climate change. In future, the biomass can be used to produce energy and textile fiber. Thus this will cater to the world’s biggest problem, a growing population that requires more and more natural resources to produce food and clothes.

Spinnova, a Finnish sustainable fiber company, is building a bio-based ecosystem for converting agricultural waste such as straw into textiles. Moreover, Spinnova is also in the process of commercialising its virgin wood-based cellulose fiber product with pulp producer Suzano. The new pilot factory marks a major step towards large-scale production of sustainable cellulose fibers. Spinnova has teamed up with clean energy firm Fortum. This has been piloted using innovative raw materials, especially agro residues.

Vietnam’s exports to Eastern Europe account for nearly three per cent of its exports. The potential not with standing, Vietnam has difficulties in exporting to Eastern Europe, including payment issues, inconsistent regulations in these countries, small size of orders, and lack of market information. Eastern Europe is Vietnam’s traditional and important market. The two sides have created solid legal frameworks for bilateral co-operation. Eastern European markets offer great potential to exporters given their relatively high GDP growth and less stringent quality requirements compared to western European countries.

The proposed EU-Vietnam free trade agreement would further boost trade between Vietnam and Eastern European countries, especially key Vietnamese exports such as seafood and vegetables, fresh and processed fruits, electronics and electronic components, textiles and footwear.

Trade between Vietnam and Russia is up 16.4 per cent from 2017 and 58 per cent from 2016. While Russian exports to Vietnam are growing faster every year, in Vietnam’s case it is slowing down. A change in Russian consumption habits and the less competitive prices of Vietnamese seafood are among the reasons. But Russian businesses want to move their garment and textile factories from China to Vietnam. Others are subcontracting Vietnamese clothing and leather shoe companies. This is a good opportunity to increase Vietnamese garment exports to Russia.

Piave Maitex will launch a jersey line combining functionality with sustainable features. The two main elements in the line are the premium stretch fibre Roica EF and perpetual. Both these are premium Global Recycled Standard (GRS) certified sustainable ingredients. Roica EF is part of the Roica Eco-Smart family, constructed with more than 50 per cent pre-consumer recycled content, and perPETual is high-quality sustainable polyester born from a cost-effective process that reverses engineer consumer waste PET bottles.

Piave Maitex is an Italian knitted fashion fabrics producer. Starting from two key high-tech, responsible raw materials, as demonstrated by the GRS certification, the manufacturer has managed to create and deliver three unique functional fabrics, dyeable and transfer printable, that perfectly combine creativity, innovation, real performance and sustainability all at once offering unparalleled comfort, performance, and tenacity. Piave Maitex was among the first textile manufacturers in Europe to get the certification of the quality system for the production and design of elastic fabrics. Piave Maitex is one of the major European producers of elastic fabrics, underwear fabrics and sportswear fabrics. The company’s offer has been enriched to cover a wider range of applications, while staying true to its DNA that revolves around quality, performance and innovation.

American & Efird (A&E) has a new line of advanced identification threads. One of the big challenges brands face today centers around authenticity. Loss of revenue, reputation, and brand trust are some of the potential outcomes of counterfeit products. A&E’s new thread line is designed to provide a tool, which adds advanced identification for greater visibility and transparency into the product creation process.

A&E is a manufacturer of industrial and consumer sewing threads. Known for its leadership role in innovation, product quality, and sustainability, A&E supports many of the world’s top industrial and consumer brands with thread products that require strict quality and performance. Through its global network, A&E’s products are manufactured in 22 countries, distributed in 50 countries and sold in over 100 countries. The textile thread manufacturer achieved its initial targets for zero-waste-to-landfill in 2015. American & Efird has also launched a new recycled polyester sewing thread. This is designed especially for athletic wear and high-performance apparel. The new thread is derived from recycled post-consumer plastic bottles and aims to provide textile manufacturers within the performance apparel, active wear, athleisure, and intimate apparel markets a recycled alternative to existing sewing threads. The air-entangled sewing thread is made with Repreve recycled polyester, a brand of US yarn supplier Unifi.

UK-base Corah Textiles has started commission knitting. The company currently employs seven people (four full-time and three part-time) and is looking to expand its operations. Corah also has a part time knitter and a Shima Seiki flat knitting machine programmer on a freelance basis. The company finishes or part-finishes garments and accessories and makes small production runs of accessories, lambswool and cashmere garments.

Corah offers all kinds of services, including hand-sewing operations such as pulling and tying-in of ends, stitching V-necks and crew necks. Machine operations include over locking, cup seaming, lock-stitching, buttonhole/button-sew, sewing back neck labels and care labels, inspection to bagging, and point to point body and collar linking. Corah offers linking in gauges of 4,5,6,8,10,12,14,16 and 20. From body linking to collar linking it’s comfortable in linking all products from various style shoulders and garments, pockets and trims and linking accessories. The link is for the middle market right up to high-end French fashion house products. Corah Textiles also has a few Shima Seiki flat knitting machines in 8 and 12 gauge along with warp scarf knitting machines and a pom-pom machine, where it makes small orders. It is in the process of installing washing/drying and pressing facilities, which hopefully will be done in the next few months.

Levi Strauss has launched garments made from a soft hemp-cotton blend in March. The denim icon found a way to make hemp fibers soft and blend with cotton, but in a way that uses significantly less water than the process used to turn hemp plants into a rough material. This will also help the brand future-proof its supply chain.

Levi Strauss started looking for cotton alternatives when looking at the growth trajectory of cotton demand compared to access to fresh water required for its cultivation and processing. It discovered cutting-edge research in Europe, where industrial hemp was already legal in many countries, and prepared a market-ready material after three years. The long-term goal is to incorporate sustainable cotton blends by using fibers such as hemp into all of its products. Levi’s is continuing to work on improving the quality of its cottonised-hemp to the point where it can be nearly half of a cotton-blend for most apparel as well as fully hemp for certain products. In five years, the brand expects a 100 per cent cottonised-hemp garment that is all hemp and feels all cotton.

However Levi’s doesn’t want to give the impression it’s out to fully replace cotton. Many years of research and development lie ahead. Plus it’s likely hemp will be just one of several natural cotton alternatives.