Cotton is not a strategic crop for Tajikistan any more. However, if there is a demand, the country is ready to grow fine fiber cotton for the global defense industry for the production of parachutes.

One reason why cotton is not a profitable crop for Tajikistan any more is the fall in international cotton prices. Prices for medium-staple cotton fiber averaged a $5,200 per tonne in 2011, falling to between $1,700 and $1,800 last year. Another reason is poor demand from domestic farmers. The demand right now is not sufficient to justify a certain volume of production.

In 2013, Tajikistan reportedly produced 3,92,000 tons of raw cotton, which was 96.4 per cent of the national cotton target. Last year, 1,91,33 hectares were allotted to cotton cultivation, which was 4 per cent or 8,133 hectares fewer than in 2012. Tajikistan exported 114,400 tons of cotton fiber worth $189.2 million, or 16.3 per cent of all its exports, last year.

Tajikistan, which borders China and Afghanistan, used to produce up to one million tons of raw cotton annually in the Soviet era. Aluminum and cotton remains major exports for Tajikistan.

Xiaodong (Chris) Li, recently appointed Rolls-Royce Commonwealth Professor at the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science has been working on various innovations in the apparel industry. In 2010, Li made The New York Times’ ‘Year in Ideas’ list for developing a process to make an armored T-shirt. He dipped an off-the-shelf shirt in a boron-nickel solution and heated it to 1,160 degrees Celsius. The result: a boron-carbide nanowire and carbon-microfiber shirt that retains the stretchability of cotton. The shirt, which turns a basic black in the process, provides excellent protection against harmful UV rays and radiation.

Two years later, Li took another T-shirt and turned it into a wearable capacitor, a device capable of storing an electrical charge. He soaked the T-shirt in fluoride, baked it at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen and turned the cellulose in the cotton into activated carbon. He dedicated small swatches of the fabric to serve as electrodes and coated the fibers with nanostructured manganese oxide, producing a stable, high-performing supercapacitor

Li’s key insight was that he saw the cotton T-shirt material as both template and carbon source. Previous attempts to create armored fabric without this template were undermined by the tendency of the boron-carbide nanowires to bunch up. Li looks to nature as well as to everyday objects for inspiration. He wants to apply the knowledge he gains from nature and combine it with the techniques of nanotechnology to produce better products more efficiently.

www.mae.virginia.edu

IAF has been granted an EU funded project for capacity building in Bangladesh’s textile and apparel industry. IAF will do it along with its two association members BKMEA (The Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association) and HCIA (The Hellenic Clothing Industry Association). The project is aimed at capacity building, network extension and knowledge transfer.

As a result this project BKMEA and HCIA will be able to offer better service to the companies who are their members through more international contacts, more knowledge and more insights. The project will include training sessions in Bangladesh and several networking trips to Europe and Bangladesh.

The apparel industry plays a big role in the industrial development of many countries creating millions of jobs worldwide. Where big improvements in production infrastructure can still be made, big productivity gains and big improvements in working conditions can be combined. Therefore, IAF is pleased to contribute to the industrial development of Bangladesh.

www.bkmea.com

Reeling under pressure from international firms Bangladesh apparel manufacturers had put forth a minimum wage for garment workers. But almost 40 per cent of factories have still not revised their wages.

Bangladesh’s 20 billion dollar garment industry is the world’s second largest. And garments form four-fifths of the country’s exports. Garment shipments grew an impressive 20 per cent in the six months to December compared to the same period last year. 

However, factories haven’t implemented the wage structure due to drop in export orders. Western retailers have cancelled or diverted orders. An appreciating local currency is also adding to the problems being faced by exporters. As a result costs of Made in Bangladesh products have gone up overseas, while the country's garment-making rivals like India have benefited from falling currencies.  It is well known that for years, extremely low wages had helped Bangladesh’s apparel makers bag export orders.

Even with the wage hike, Bangladesh garment workers are among the lowest paid in the world. Protests over poor wages, benefits and working conditions are very frequent in the country. It gained intensity after the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory complex in April last year, which killed 1,135 people.

The minimum wage agreement came into force in December 2013. The new wage structure includes allowances for food, rent, transport and medical care. Workers’ basic salaries were increased by 5 per cent a year.