FW
At the end of June, 682 Indian textile mills were closed. Of these, 232 were in Tamil Nadu while 85 in Maharashtra and 60 in Uttar Pradesh. As many as 42 such are in Haryana. Among the 1,399 operational textile mills, 752 were in Tamil Nadu, followed by Maharashtra (135) and Andhra Pradesh (112).
Under the Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS), launched last year, there are benefits in terms of a one time capital subsidy of 15 per cent for the garmenting and technical textiles segments with a cap of Rs 30 crores. Besides, there is a 10 per cent capital subsidy for segments like weaving, processing, jute, silk and handlooms with a subsidy cap of Rs 20 crores for setting up new textile units or for expansion of existing units with benchmarked technology.
Production of Tamil Nadu textile manufacturers is expected to reach Rs 75,000 crores by 2020. Right now it’s Rs 50,000 crores. Currently India is looking to add around 3 to 3.5 million spindles a year against an average number of 2.5 million spindles over the past five years. The southern region is expected to contribute to about one million and more spindles every year.
With an aim to project the city as an emerging start-up a multi-storey trade facilitation centre is being planned on 8,000 sq. mt. land at Parvat Patiya near Amazia Fun Park by the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC). This centre will provide an eco-system for new startups to connect with national and international businesses and facilitate innovations.
SMC will provide nodal support to all kinds of start-ups along with new innovators in textiles and diamond sectors. It has appointed a consultant to prepare a vision document for a start-up and trade facilitation centre at Parvat Patiya and will provide a working space to new start-ups with established ones along with incubation facility and help building advance technology and research infrastructure.
SMC will work as facilitator by bringing in all the stake holders under one umbrella. New innovations and research in textile and diamond sectors would also be a key facet of the centre where in advents and innovations in new technology would lead city's two major industrial segments to be indigenous and make their products cheaper following upgradation of the tools and machinery and innovations made at the centre.
Special commissioner for Smart City project M Nagrajan says the centre could to be a game changer for Surat in coming decade. Along with textile and diamond sector, this start-up facilitation would actually pillar the future growth of Surat city. P M Shah, President of South Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SGCCI), feels this would further propel growth of the rapidly developing city. With local governance endorsing the innovations and research on a world scale, it would have a tremendous effect.
Pakistan’s cotton output may fall short of the target by 10.26 per cent. The country’s biggest crop producer Punjab is facing a water shortage. However, the parameters for production, including plant population, bolls per plant and boll weight, are better than last year’s.
Production was recorded at 10.6 million bales during the crop year of 2016-17. There was sowing on 2.753 million hectares this year, up 13.9 per cent as compared to the previous year’s area under cultivation. The cotton crop size for Punjab is now projected at 8.80 million bales, followed by Sindh (3.70 million bales) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan with 0.10 million bales each.
Farmers are being trained for the management of pink bollworm as well as the leaf burning syndrome. Cotton prices are also encouraging for farmers. The country is making all-out efforts to boost cotton production by taking supportive measures for all stakeholders. Measures have been taken for the establishment of a National Textile University in all four provinces for technology upgrade and skill development in the agriculture sector.
Due to nominal carry-forward stocks and depleting cotton reserves of China, India and US, prices of the commodity in the local market would remain stable during the season.
China is the largest foreign investor in Myanmar and has substantial investments in the country’s garment sector. FDI has the potential to positively contribute to economic transformation and poverty-reduction in Myanmar. As of mid-2015, about 55 per cent of registered garment firms in the country were fully or partly foreign-owned. Among them, a quarter came from China, 17 per cent from Hong Kong, 29 per cent from South Korea and 12 per cent from Japan.
However, Chinese and Hong Kong-linked garment firms have produced few benefits, linkages or spillovers in Myanmar beyond exports and job creation. The reason is Myanmar’s industry lacks entrepreneurial, management and technical skills. Foreign-owned firms have few local managers. In the long term, Myanmar should follow the Bangladesh example, where tertiary education institutes dedicated to the garment industry increase supply of managers and high-skill technicians.
In addition the country should ease entry restrictions for foreign firms, undertake active investment promotion in garments through complementary reforms in finance and trade policy, expand training to tackle the shortage of high-level skilled manpower, and engage with buying firms, especially global retail or apparel corporations.
Other possible reforms are: making access to trade credit possible for garment exports and providing tariff-free fabric imports to both free-on-board and cut-make-package producers.
Denim brand Levi’s is using 3D printing technology to develop denim jackets. The step has come at a time when the company is planning to delve into a futuristic mode to innovate the manufacturing process and its design approach. Levi’s is taking digital renderings of its denim jacket and using 3D printing technology to create a shell of what the real jacket looks like. The denim brand is using the Stratasys’ Fortus 450 mc 3D production system for effective implementation of the process.
The process is dedicated to extracting the essence of the product and then shaping it as a digital entity. This further can be distributed and remotely turned into templates which incorporate intensive patterns and then can just be all captured in the piece of very advanced digital collateral.
This means Levi’s doesn’t have to rely on sort of centralised manufacturing sites any more. Additionally, the process will enable Levi’s to capture all the twill lines, stitch lines and the buttonholes of the jacket with the help of a topography scan. These features will then be re-rendered as a 3D print, reducing seven different panels to just one panel by superimposing the fabric over the template.
German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), in cooperation with the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA) for the first time is supporting a German group participation at Irantex, the international exhibition of textile machinery, raw materials, home textiles, embroidery machines and textile products scheduled for beginning of September in Tehran. Irantex, will be a four-day event held from September 4 to 7 at Tehran International Permanent Fairground, Shahid Chamran Expressway.
The German Pavilion, initiated by the VDMA Textile Machinery, will cover 300 sq. mt. exhibition space. Nearly 26 VDMA member companies will participate in the official German presentation at Irantex. According to VDMA, in the first five months of 2017, Germany’s exports of textile machinery and accessories reached more than €27 million which was already more than in the entire year 2016. The VDMA exhibitors at Irantex will cover the whole textile chain. The companies presenting their latest developments include ANDRITZ Kusters, Autefa Solutions Germany, Bruckner Textile Technologies, Oerlikon Manmade Fibers Segment Oerlikon Textile, Strobel Spezialmaschinen etc.
Similarly some companies from South Korea, Spain, Italy, Turkey, India, Netherland, Russia, China, Taiwan, Germany and Japan will be participating in IRANTEX.
India has set up institutional mechanisms to enable the textile industry achieve its full potential of production, exports and employment. One is a Knowledge Network Management System (KNMS) which will facilitate exchange of knowledge between academia, the farming community and the industry on productivity of natural fibers and diversification of their by-products. The KNMS will cover jute, silk, wool and cotton.
Another is a synergy group on manmade fibers which will formulate policy interventions to enhance the growth and competitiveness of manmade fiber industry in India. India has a great chance to capture the market for manmade fibers that’s been vacated by China.
Yet another is a task force on Textiles India which has been set up to steer follow-up action on various outcomes of Textiles India 2017 for growth of the textiles sector. Textiles India 2017, held in Gujarat from June 30 to July 2, 2017, was not only the largest ever international trade event in the textile sector in the country, but also hosted a series of roundtables and international conferences with the participation of eminent persons from the business fraternity, academia and policy makers to deliberate on various opportunities for the growth of the sector.
GST will have little effect on prices of textile products. However, the cut in GST rates on job work done in natural fibers including cotton and woolens has provided a major relief to textile companies. The move is expected to boost domestic business and increase international competitiveness. It will reduce the tax burden and avoid inverted duty for textile manufacturers.
The relief is expected to benefit the unorganised sector, where as much as 80 per cent of the work such as stitching, weaving and knitting happens. The five per cent tax rate is applicable for job works in apparel as well as shawls and carpets. Textile groups want to know whether operations like packaging, shifting of raw materials, loading and unloading also fall in the five per cent slab. Much of such operations are contractual but still have indirect tax implications for a company.
GST has been reduced to five per cent from the initially decided 18 per cent. The lower GST slab is expected to benefit the entire value chain of the textile sector. Though the five per cent tax rate is applicable for job work in apparel as well as shawls and carpets, it’s felt the tax relaxation will benefit the unorganised sector more. Textile companies want clarification over the term job work, which could include manufacturing activities such as weaving, cutting and knitting.
Exports of Egypt's cotton in the 2016-17 season have risen 19 per cent. Last year Egypt banned all but the highest quality cotton seed in order to save its historic crop, dramatically reducing the area under cultivation to about 1,30,000 acres, a more than 100-year low.
Egypt is now looking to scale that cultivation back up. The area planted rose to about 2,20,000 acres this year and is expected to hit up to 5,00,000 acres in the next two to three years. So the area under cultivation is growing and exports growing so that Egyptian cotton can now be sold at a price that's less than California pima.
Egypt, last November, floated its currency, roughly halving it in value and making its exports relatively cheap on international markets, a boon for Egyptian cotton traders able to source higher quality cotton after the new regulations. They see Egypt able to more than double its global market share within three years to capture about 20 per cent of a small but high-end market that trades some 5,00,000 tons of long-staple cotton per year. Egyptian long staple cotton is famously used for luxury linens. It trades at a high premium compared to the more common short-staple cotton.
Bangladesh has a target of earning $50 billion from readymade garment exports by 2021. The readymade garment sector is a vital sector of Bangladesh economy which is immensely contributing to the country’s export earnings, employment generation and value addition. Contributing approximately 80 per cent of the country’s total export earnings, Bangladesh is the second largest apparel exporter in the world, next to China.
And in the case of empowerment of women, this industry is one of the driving forces. Currently, more than 44 million workers are working in garment factories in the country and 80 per cent of them are women. Efforts are being made to ensure a safe, sound, green, environment-friendly and a vibrant garment sector. In fact, out of 10 eco-friendly factories in the world, seven are located in Bangladesh.
Steps are being taken on capacity building and improving the competitiveness of the readymade garment industry. Significant improvements have been made on various issues, including the development of garment industry, strengthening safety of workers, fixing minimum wages, inspection of industrial factories and strengthening of monitoring. Labor laws have been amended and attention has been paid to occupational health and safety, green growth and sophisticated, clean technology.
