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The value of Zimbabwe’s clothing and textile exports has grown 165 per cent from 2012 to 2016. Nearly 80 per cent of the country’s clothing and textile exports goes to South Africa. However, the apparel sector currently operates at less than 30 per cent of its capacity. The industry that once used to employ over 40,000 people now employs only 8,000 workers.
Zimbabwe is flooded with cheap textile and apparel imports from Asian countries, especially from China. These low-priced textile and apparel imports have had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Textile and apparel manufacturers want a ban on imports of cheap polyester knitted fabric and finished blankets.
Other problems plaguing the industry are: poor performance, low productivity, out of date technology, and lack of investment and government support. An increasing number of textile mills in the country is closing down. Zimbabwe’s textile and clothing sub-sector consists of three components: production and ginning of cotton, transformation of lint into yarn and fabric, and the conversion of fabric and yarn into garments. There are also companies that are in protective clothing have been doing well because of the mines that are opening up.
Tirupur is facing a water crisis. So knitwear units have installed zero liquid discharge facilities. This helps them recover 90 per cent of the water required for the industry. The remaining 10 per cent has to be topped up every day. There is a plan to recycle sewage water also.
The textile industry is heavily water dependent. Water shortage has reduced efficiency by nearly 25 per cent. There is a shortage of drinking water too. The industry has been through booms and lulls and prolonged slackness in export orders, besides troubles closer home with hundreds of dyeing units found to have improper effluent treatment mechanisms forced to shut down.
Knitwear exports from Tirupur grew 12 per cent in 2015-16 compared to the previous year. The share of Tirupur knitwear exports in India’s total garment exports is 20 per cent. Exporters want a one-time long term initiative to be undertaken to uplift the skill proficiency of existing laborers in order to increase productivity at par with competing countries and at the same time reduce waste.
Limping back on a slow-but-promising western order recovery and robust domestic consumption, Tirupur is pursuing another growth cycle. The cluster sees protective wear, sports garments and defense-related businesses as obvious lines, given its huge spinning capacities.
India’s technical textile market may grow at 12 per cent per annum. It is currently estimated at Rs 1 lakh crore. India will contribute towards shaping the future of technical textile sector by diversifying towards nonwovens and entering into global partnerships.
Technical textiles have immense potential and are considered a sunrise industry in India. The industry could grow with sufficient investments in technology. Development and industrialisation are the main drivers for the demand for technical textile products in a country.
The market for technical textiles in India is expected to grow at 12 per cent CAGR between 2015-16 and 2017-18. India is expected to play a key role in shaping the technical textiles market with consumers spending more on home textiles, sportswear products, and medical products.
Technical textiles provide new opportunities to the Indian textile industry to have a long term sustainable future. India can be positioned as a manufacturing hub for technical textiles. Demand for technical textiles is expected to stay steady during the period 2015 to 2020 due to a broadening application in end-use industries, such as automotive, construction, health care, and sports equipment. Despite achieving a high growth rate, the per capita consumption of technical textiles in India is 1.7 per kg vis-a-vis 10 to 12 kg in developed countries.
Swiss textile machinery producers enjoyed strong exports in Egypt up to 2013 but the country’s economic and political woes since then have seen shipments decline to only 20 per cent of previous levels. Textile production is a vital contributor to Egypt’s economy. But the sector’s performance and potential is being held back by financial constraints, rooted in the serious economic downturn of recent years and the accompanying severe devaluation of the Egyptian currency.
Political instability since the revolution of 2011 drove away investors. And it has thus far hampered the much-needed investment in new technology by the textile industry. Switzerland has made offers of assistance in the key area of financing capital imports. Switzerland is ready to support Egypt in re-connecting with worldwide textile community.
Difficulties in accessing foreign funds and the high costs associated with this have been a major obstacle to Egyptian companies seeking to renew their equipment and take up new technology.
MFC (Manmade Fibers Congress) will be held in Austria from September 13 to 15, 2017. This is an event on sustainability, reduction of carbon dioxide, ecological catering, eco-friendly accommodation, waste management, water management and marine litter. It will showcase medicine and hygiene applications in the fields of hospital, nursing and implantology.
The event will be attended by leading brands and private label producers. Experts will speak on themes like fiber innovations, fibers, textiles and nonwovens for hygiene and healthcare applications, fibers, textiles and nonwovens for protective applications, and fibers, textiles and nonwovens for sports and leisure wear.
A reputed global producer of flame retardant textile fibers will present the latest developments and the requirements of the preliminary stages of the supply chain. Issues of functionalisation and ecological manufacturing process will also be addressed at the event. An expert panel will discuss textile and nonwoven waste. This will see the coming together of the fiber and nonwovens industry and waste management companies.
Lenzing, the world’s largest and most innovative cellulose fiber producer, is the lead sponsor of the congress. More than 700 participants from 34 nations - 80 per cent from Europe, 15 per cent from Asia, five per cent from the Americas - visited the show last year.
Evrything, Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Avery Dennison have gone into a partnership. The partnership explores how suppliers, manufacturers, retail brands, and consumers can access and engage with sustainability information by interacting with digital identities on products.
This collaboration begins with the launch of a smart products pilot program leveraging Evrythng’s platform and Avery Dennison’s sustainable unique identity labels coupled with SAC’s industry-leading Higg Index.
The pilot program enables participating brands to test how Higg’s performance information can be shared directly to consumers and other stakeholders via unique digital identities and smart labels on products.
Through global packaging partnerships, Evrythng enables brands to digitize their products at the point of manufacture with software identities in the cloud. These products allow brands the ability to capture and share sustainability information anywhere in the supply chain—delivering incremental business value while providing consumers with greater product transparency, which they can use to make informed purchasing decisions rooted in sustainability.
Through the partnership with the Sustainable Apparel Coalition and Avery Dennison, Evrything gives apparel brands the ability to explore how to use cloud-connected digital identities on their products to be increasingly transparent with consumers about their sustainability credentials in order to build and strengthen their direct customer relationships.
"Withstanding price pressures, Cotton spinners in India are resorting to production cuts in the current financial year to sustain profit margins. Experts estimate an average production cut of 15 per cent for fiscal 2017-18, if the current scenario continues. A recent study by Care Ratings estimates India's cotton yarn production at 3,936 million kg for financial year 2016-17, nearly five per cent lower than 4,138 million kg output reported in the previous financial year. For the past few years, cotton yarn production has increased by 3 -3.5 per cent to meet domestic demand and exports."
Withstanding price pressures, Cotton spinners in India are resorting to production cuts in the current financial year to sustain profit margins. Experts estimate an average production cut of 15 per cent for fiscal 2017-18, if the current scenario continues. A recent study by Care Ratings estimates India's cotton yarn production at 3,936 million kg for financial year 2016-17, nearly five per cent lower than 4,138 million kg output reported in the previous financial year. For the past few years, cotton yarn production has increased by 3 -3.5 per cent to meet domestic demand and exports.
India's cotton-spinning industry has been struggling with profitability for over two years due to a sharp decline in yarn exports following a slump in Chinese demand. Chinese textiles mills, which used to manufacture fabric after importing yarn from India, have now slowed down following the government's policy of discouraging energy-intensive industries. This has hit India's cotton yarn manufacturers hard.
While cotton prices have risen by eight per cent since January 2017 with the benchmark Shankar 6 variety currently trading at Rs12,035 a quintal, overall cost of production has also gone up by 8-10 per cent. Over 5 per cent appreciation in the rupee over the past three months has also impacted exporters' receivables proportionately. A recent Care Ratings report, however, estimates a five per cent decline in India's cotton yarn production for 2016-17 at 3,936 million kg as compared to 4,138 million kg for 2015-16. After declining by 10 per cent in 2011-12, cotton yarn production rose by over 14 per cent y-o-y to 3,583 million kg in 2012-13. In 2013-14, production was up by about 10 per cent to 3,928 million kg. High cotton prices and easy availability of MMF (man-made fibres) at competitive rates led to slower growth of cotton yarn production, the report said.
Production volumes
Cotton yarn demand in India grew at a healthy pace in 2015-16, supported by domestic demand and yarn exports. In 2016-17, demand is expected to be sluggish as derived demand and direct yarn exports will be under pressure. Also, with alternatives being explored for crude oil such as shale, prices of crude oil are largely expected to be stable during the year. Hence, demand for cotton yarn is set to face stiff competition from its easily available substitute – manmade fibres (synthetic yarns).
An Icra report said that the growth in spun-yarn production, including cotton, blended and man-made spun yarns, declined to a five-year low in FY2017, keeping production almost flat vis-a-vis the previous year. Further, improved competitiveness of polyester staple fibre (PSF) vis-a-vis cotton resulted in a five per cent YoY growth in non-cotton yarn production in FY2017, while cotton-yarn production is estimated to have declined by two per cent.
The domestic spinning industry remains highly dependent upon exports, with a third of India's cotton yarn having been exported during the past five years. Further, high dependence on exports to China and the resulting sensitivity of India's exports to China's policy on reserve cotton stock warrant a cautious outlook on India's yarn exports, until Chinese cotton stock levels subside to historical average, points out Jayanta Roy, Senior Vice-President, and Group Head, Icra. The research agency said that as overall yarn demand is expected to remain tepid, spinners may have to sacrifice capacity utilisation or contribution, and hence profitability is likely to remain under pressure. In addition to demand pressures, the spinners continue to face challenges on account of the high cotton prices.
The rupee’s appreciation by over five per cent against the dollar in 2017 is hurting Indian textile and apparel exports. The rupee’s strength has shrunk exporters’ margins. The dearer rupee also makes yarn, fabric and garment imports cheaper, hurting local manufacturers.
Export margins in apparels tend to be two or four per cent in dollar terms and the rupee appreciation has almost washed these away. Almost 70 per cent of India’s textile exports is dollar denominated. Meanwhile, currency depreciation in some of India's competing nations like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh is making their exports more competitive.
Exporters in the knitwear hub of Tirupur in Tamil Nadu fear they may lose orders to neighboring countries since they are at a 10 to 12 per cent price disadvantage. With the rupee appreciating this gap has widened by another four or five per cent.
An exporter supplying to one of the top three retailers in the US says his buyer prefers cheaper Bangladeshi textiles. He has let go of his margins but he’s still unable to compete with Bangladesh’s manufacturers. Tirupur is a sourcing hub for Walmart, Ralph Lauren, Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger, H&M and Marks & Spencer. GST is expected to have a further impact on exports as duty drawbacks will be curtailed, adding more pressure on the textile industry.
Consumers in the UK are moving their fashion spend online. A lot of their discretionary spend is going toward leisure activities. There has been a dip in demand for clothing, toys and household appliances.
And fashion retail lost out big time last year as more stores than ever closed. Closures outpaced store openings in 2016 for the seventh year running as chain stores, those with five branches or more, closed down to the tune of 5,430 units, compared to 4,534 opening. That left a gap of almost 900 stores, which was nearly double the closure gap in 2015.
Fashion is migrating online at a faster rate than ever, leaving closures in its wake. The only good news for fashion was that jewelry stores were among the fastest growing physical outlets last year.
The face of UK high streets is evolving with the fastest growth being seen for health clubs, coffee shops, and fast food locations. However, last year was relatively benign for restructuring and insolvency in all sub-sectors of retail, so the net closures point to structural changes in customer behavior more so than a consumer slowdown.
Retailers face the dual pressures of cautious consumers and rising operating costs. Transport costs are up.
The next ITM, Turkey’s well known textile machinery show will be held from, April 14 to 17, 2018. On display will be textile equipments and products, textile related software and solutions and other products and services. It gathers together some of the most important manufacturers of textile machinery from Turkey and around the world.
A significant increase will take place in terms of both exhibition area and number of participants. With increased participation from leading brands, the occupancy rate at the exhibition has grown up to 80 per cent this year. ITM is a showcase for weaving, printing, digital printing, flat and circular knitting, weft and warp knitting, spinning, winding, twisting, texturing, hosiery, quilting, dyeing and finishing machinery, textile chemicals, lab equipments, compressors and generators.
The event paves the way for innovation and creativity and delivers promising returns to exhibitors. The last exhibition, in 2016, welcomed 1,200 companies. Around 49,000 professionals attended, from 77 countries.
Most textile machinery manufacturers in Turkey range from small to medium sized companies. The line of textile machinery products manufactured by Turkish companies varies substantially from highly automated equipment to basic models. They have competence in most machinery categories such as atmospheric jet dyeing or blow dyeing.
