Sri Lanka and Italy are strengthening bilateral ties.The two countries have maintained excellent relations over the years.

Sri Lankans working in Italy are required to make a pension contribution amounting to around nine per cent of their salary. They qualify for a pension after working for 20 years. However many workers do not get to enjoy this benefit as most of them work only for a few years in the country.

Sri Lanka wants Italy to adjust this scheme so that a person would receive his contribution immediately upon relinquishing his employment in Italy, irrespective of the number of years worked. The Sri Lankan community in Italy presently comprises around 1,20,000 residing in different parts of the country.

Italy has been offered skilled workers especially IT professionals, nurses, and healthcare supporters as Sri Lanka provides special certifications and training in these areas.

Italy as a member of the European Union worked toward lifting the ban on fisheries exports of Sri Lanka to the EU in 2016 and restoration of the GSP Plus facility to Sri Lanka in May 2017.

Italy has been encouraged to set up operations in Sri Lanka for sectors such as textile and apparel, leather footwear, confectioneries, gem and jewelry and food processing.

SRF’s total revenue increased by 41 per cent in the first nine months of the current financial year.

Established in 1970, SRF is a chemical-based multi-business entity engaged in production of industrial and specialty intermediates. The company’s diversified business portfolio covers technical textiles, fluorochemicals, specialty chemicals, packaging films and engineering plastics. Anchored by a strong workforce of more than 6,300 employees working across 12 manufacturing plants in India, two in Thailand and one in South Africa, the company exports to more than 70 countries.

SRF continues to maintain its market leadership in nylon tyre cord fabric, which is expected to remain a key business in the segment and a generator of steady cash flow. Other sub-segments of technical textiles have started contributing to its performance. Also, the improving macro-economic environment is expected to have a positive impact on the belting fabric segment. In the coated fabrics business, SRF continues to maintain its domestic market leadership. In laminated fabrics, the company has reported consistent sales in hot laminations. It has successfully commercialized two new products during the current year.

The company proposes to install additional spinning and textile capacity at Manali and Gwalior at Rs 80 crores to be incurred over the next three years.

Sinterama offers specialist polyester yarns, serving the market for customised solutions.

Based in Italy, the group founded in 1968 has expanded to multiple global locations with a footprint in the UK, Bulgaria, Brazil, and China.

For Sinterama sustainability is a way of life. The company tries its best to reduce plastic in its manufacturing process, recycles its plastic bobbins, cartons and monitors its resource use – materials, fuel, energy. It works with clients on reusing packaging and encourages employees to use less plastic, not just at work but in their own homes as well. The company communicates with all stake holders – clients, suppliers, employees, associates – the importance of respecting the environment and using sustainability as the basic mantra in all their business practices.

Big brands with high visibility want to be seen using sustainable materials but they demand that the supply chain make it cost-neutral. So in effect the full additional cost burden of making a sustainable product is shifted to the supply chain’s shoulders. Big brands need to step forward and be willing to listen to the supply chain and participate in the cost burden. Asking suppliers to deliver a recycled yarn-based fabric or garment at no extra cost is in itself unsustainable. The challenge is finding big brands willing to accept cost-differentiation for recycled yarn based products.

For the nine month period India’s overall textile and apparel sales increased by nine per cent.
Ebitda increased by 17 per cent. Raw material cost saw an increase of eight per cent. While employee cost saw an increase of seven per cent, other costs also saw an increase of ten per cent for the same period.

For the top textile and apparel companies, there was an increase in overall sales and ebitda margins by nine per cent and 17 per cent, respectively.

India’s overall textile and apparel exports witnessed a growth of two per cent while apparel exports declined by eight per cent during the nine-month period. Meanwhile, textile and apparel imports rose five per cent with a significant 52 per cent rise in apparel imports.

Indian textile and apparel exports go to all countries including China. The recovery in the US economy has given a boost to India’s textile and apparel exports. Since the US economy is on a continuous growth path, India’s textile and apparel export growth is expected to continue. India registered a growth of 5.37 per cent in textile and apparel exports in 2017. India’s share in world trade in textile and clothing is estimated to be 4.95 per cent. With these exports, India is ranked second among suppliers in the world.

Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a method to produce scalable graphene-based yarn.

Multi-functional wearable e-textiles have been a focus of much attention due to their great potential for healthcare, sportswear, fitness and aerospace applications. Graphene has been considered a potentially good material for these types of applications due to its high conductivity, and flexibility. Every atom in graphene is exposed to its environment allowing it to sense changes in its surroundings, making it an ideal material for sensors. Smart wearable textiles have experienced a renaissance in recent years through the innovation and miniaturisation and wireless revolution.

There have been efforts to integrate textile-based sensors into garments. However, current manufacturing processes are complex and time consuming, expensive, and the materials used are non-biodegradable and use unstable metallic conductive materials. The new process has the potential to produce tons of conductive graphene-based yarn, using existing textile machineries and without adding to production costs. In addition to producing the yarn in large quantities, they are washable, flexible, inexpensive and biodegradable. Such sensors could be integrated to either a self-powered RFID or low-powered Bluetooth to send data wirelessly to mobile device.

High performance clothing is going through a transformation currently, thanks to recent innovations in textiles.

The Maharashtra unit of the Commission on Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) is seeking a 15 per cent increase in the minimum support price ( MSP) of cotton for the season of 2019-20.

The MSP for medium-staple variety of cotton is at Rs 5,150 per quintal, and that for long-staple is at Rs 5,450 per quintal, which are roughly equivalent to Rs 43,000-43,500 per candy (1 candy equals to 356 kg). The government had raised the MSP for cotton by 26 per cent this year. It was mulling to raise the MSP of cotton further.

The spot market prices of CAI for cotton of staple length 30 mm have dropped to Rs 42,100 per bale on March 1 from Rs 43,400 per bale on January 1. Prices of raw cotton are moving below the minimum support price levels.

The decline in the domestic prices has brought export parity, maintained traders. Prices are declining this season despite forecast of lower cotton production and higher exports figures for the first three months of cotton season that started in October.

Pakistan needs to improve cotton yields and increase the area under cultivation.
There is a crucial need for Pakistan’s textile industry to up its game where balancing modernisation and replacement as well as skill development are concerned.

The China Pakistan Economic Corridor is likely to result in improved energy supply for the industry, better internal connectivity and logistics as well as new international market linkages. Chinese businesses have shown interest in setting up joint ventures with local partners. But this will benefit only a handful of players given that the majority of the firms operating in Pakistan’s garment sector are small and medium enterprises, unable to invest at the scale Chinese companies usually operate at. However, technology and skills transfer is absolutely necessary and for that the presence of a high value added textile industry in Pakistan is a prerequisite. Detailed plans need to be made which take into account the strengths of Pakistan’s domestic industry and facilitate Chinese help in weaker areas especially technology.

Competition is on the rise in global apparel and textile markets and things are going to heat up even more. Countries like Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka have become the new disruptors and are vying to get a bigger share of the global textile pie.

Karl Mayer has launched a new platform, Textile Makerspace, to bring together innovations from both areas. The platform aims to introduce new developments, such as the Textile Circuit.

Textile Circuit, the first topic to be covered by Textile Makerspace, demonstrates the possibilities of incorporating electrically conductive yarns into warp-knitted textiles directly on the machine. Functional elements, such as sensors, conductors and coils, can be incorporated very easily, without any additional production steps or compromising the textile characteristics.

This has led, for example, to the development of comfortable cuffs for controlling robots and textile charging stations for inductively charging smartphones.

Kingpins will ask denim spinners who exhibit at its next Amsterdam edition to comply with, or exceed, current CSR regulations relating to environmental protection and the use of chemicals.

The show’s goal is to become even more engaged in promoting environmental responsibility within the industry. Advise and support will be offered to exhibitors in order to help them transform their approach. Kingpins does not wish to introduce new certifications, but the organisers are keen to promote the strictest existing ones. Once they have drawn up a set of social responsibility specifications for exhibitors, they plan to share them with other textile shows, in order to promote collective change across the supply chain.

For the time being, the new exhibitor admission criteria are limited to the show’s Amsterdam edition, but the goal is to eventually apply them to the New York, Hong Kong and China shows too.

Both the denim supply chain and jeans manufacturers have been frequently singled out for their less than satisfactory environmental and human rights records. The accusations have mostly been leveled at workshops and factories outside the European Union, as European denim weavers and manufacturers are keen to emphasise that the EU already imposes CSR regulations.

Reed Exhibitions Japan has brought together a unique Japanese trade show, combing Fashion World Tokyo and Fashion World Tokyo –Factor, which satisfies fashion needs by gathering manufacturers in one place.

Fashion World Tokyo comprises separate shows divided by themed categories of fashion items Fashion Wear Expo, Bag Expo, Fashion Jewellery Expo and Shoes Expo and Fashion World Tokyo -Factory-, consisting of Textile Tokyo and Fashion Sourcing Tokyo, a gathering of popular fashion garments/textiles companies and fashion sourcing manufacturers. The on-site meeting provides good busRiness opportunities for exhibitors and visitors.

One of the features of Fashion World Tokyo is its focus on ‘the best business platform." The show managers have developed various kinds of approaches to make the show accessible and productive, such as introducing a "Matchmaking Service" and an online appointment platform.