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Top garment manufacturers, technocrats and technology providers recently got together to imagine the future of the garment manufacturing business in Bangladesh, in an event organized by Thread Sol.
The event explored a range of pivotal subjects set to impact the future of garment manufacturing in the country, in particular, three fundamental elements: resource optimisation, lowered costs and improved outputs.
Participants also took a closer look at how the best manufacturers in Bangladesh rely on a combination of technology and best practices to deliver timely output without compromising on quality or cost.
Factories in Bangladesh need automation and data analytics more than ever. The productivity gains could be significant as even a modest three or four per cent savings of fabric could add millions of profits that could be invested for the future.
Technology is a solution that can aid manufacturers in this dynamic industry. Some of the best manufacturers in Bangladesh have integrated technology into their set-ups and realised benefits. Manufacturers need to adopt the fast fashion environment of consumerism.
A recurring theme throughout the event was the notion that locking-in the right partnerships, with the right innovations, will enable apparel companies in Bangladesh to turn challenges into opportunities.
The event was organized by Thread Sol, a pioneer in enterprise material management for the sewn products industry.
Spinexpo trade exhibitions in France, US and China will present autumn- winter 2018 fibers, yarns and knitwear collections.
China Spinexpo will be held August 29 to 31, 2017, showcasing over 200 specially selected companies. This trade show caters to a growing mid-end domestic market and international brands manufacturing in Asia. The show continues to be a driving force in moving suppliers and buyers forward, urging them to bring fresh and new ideas in design, innovation and technical application.
Spinexpo France will be held July 3 to July 5, 2017. Products from leading top-level international exhibitors including 85 spinning mills, knitwear and machine manufacturers as well as the swatch studios, will be displayed at the show.
Spinexpo United States will be held July 18 to 20, 2017. The exhibition will feature 77 leading exhibitors, similar to those in Paris and is a B-to-B trade show attracting key influential brands from the American markets. Exhibitors will be showcasing innovative products with a focus on performance and functionality as well as new spinning and knitting techniques across core and fancy items. A special focus will be on a wider range of products with stock service, shorter lead times and faster delivery times.
Spinexpo is the industry’s leading sourcing exhibition dedicated to promoting innovation in yarns, fibers and knitwear.
Like-for-like sales in the UK were down 1.3 per cent overall for the month of May, while fashion stores were hit with a 3.6 per cent fall in year-on-year figures.
Fashion sales were negative in the first three weeks of May, while the figures for the month make it the fourth of the year recording no in-store growth, suggesting a worrying downward spiral for clothing retailers.
Home ware stores fared better, posting like-for-like growth of 1.2 per cent off a strong base this year, but the lifestyle goods sector was the major winner with a sales boost of 3.9 per cent year on year, buoyed by record tourist numbers and a weak pound.
Reduced spending, resulting from household budgets coming under increasing pressure from rising inflation and low wage increases, was being felt most by fashion retailers. They are facing turbulent times with rising operational costs, higher import prices and economic uncertainty.
These factors have resulted in higher inflation and therefore lower discretionary spend. Since shoppers need incentives to make purchases, retailers have chosen to run targeted, short-term discounting in an attempt to ignite spending and protect further erosion to margins.
The hope is that these turbulent times calm down and the right strategies pay dividends.
CPM (Collection Premiere Moscow) will be held August 30 to September 2, 2017.The fashion trade show will showcase clothing for spring/summer 2018 and incorporate 18 catwalk shows by high-end labels, trend lectures by in-house experts and seminars for buyers and exhibitors.
The event will present the latest international trends and collections for various segments including women’s wear, men’s wear, children’s wear, knitwear, leisure wear, leather wear, fur wear, swim and beachwear as well as accessories, young fashion, evening wear and lingerie.
CPM was founded in 2003. It is open for every fashion brand or their agents or distributors who would like to sell their collections to professional buyers. In addition there are many designers who are showing their latest collections to be ordered.
CPM is an information platform and a networking tool for the textile business in Russia. Some of the highlights this show offers are 47 fashion runways which show 1,520 collections in total, informative seminars and the Russian Fashion Retail Forum. This expo is the largest fashion celebration in Eastern Europe, attracting shop owners, corporate executives, buyers and store managers.
CPM includes three segments: CPM Premium, CPM Kids Premium Brands and CPM Accessories and Shoes.
For the 2017-18 fiscal year the government reduced the corporate tax for the sector to 15 per cent from the exiting 20 per cent in the proposed budget toease the growth of the readymade garments (RMG) sector as well as ease of doing business.
While placing the budget finance minister AMA Muhith pointed out saying that apparel sector has been enjoying various incentives and tax benefits and looking at the RMG sector’s contribution to economic growth and employment generation, he would reduce the corporate tax rate to 15 per cent for RMG sector. The reason being it was under manifold pressure due to adversities in the international market and claimed cash incentives along with withdrawal of withholding tax, he added. He ensures both sustainable development as well as conservation of our environment the government has undertaken various initiatives for preventing environment pollution and maintaining ecological balance. He also believes export to the US market will increase with accelerated economic recovery in US.
Talking to The Independent, research fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Towfiqul Islam Khan says the tax rate will definitely facilitate the RMG sector to accelerate exports to the international market and thus there will be a boost in the local economy.
In regards to green factories in textile and RMG production Khan revealed that 67 LEED-certified factories were operating in Bangladesh, and among these, 13 have received platinum status, 20 gold status, and 34 silver status. 220 factories were waiting in the pipeline to get the LEED certification and hence according to him this 14 per cent tax rate will certainly encourage more factories to get green building certificates in future.
Compared to last year till March of the current fiscal year, growth of import payments stood at 11.07 per cent. Aiming to promote the growth of domestic heavy industries, the minister proposed to continue with VAT exemption for some items for a few years more.
The industries that will get the benefit are local manufacturers of refrigerators and freezers, air-conditioners, domestic producers and suppliers of palm oil and LPG cylinder manufacturers.
As many as 80 spinning mills in Pakistan have shifted to polyester and cotton blended fabrics from pure cotton fabrics.This has resulted in a reduced consumption of cotton yarn.
Imports of Indian yarn have increased as the production cost of cotton yarn in Pakistan is 16.5 per cent higher as compared to India. Besides, a sizeable quantity of cloth from Vietnam and China is also coming to Pakistan unchecked and thus badly affecting the local industry.
As many as 27 textile mills are for sale and a major portion of the machinery of these mills is being sold as scrap. It’s estimated that 200 out of the 1200 ginning factories will not become functional during the forthcoming cotton season.
Production of cotton could increase next year if the government ensures that the farmers get rates equal to international prices.
Meanwhile, with slow demand from spinners, cotton prices eased further.
Major deals on the ready counter that changed hands were: 600 bales from Kahnpur at Rs 7000 a maund, 800 bales from Rahim Yar Khan at Rs 7000, 200 bales from Pakpattan at Rs 6800, 1,600 bales from Haroon¬abad at Rs 7100, 1,400 bales from Alipur at Rs 6775, 756 bales from Jattoi at Rs 6800, 400 bales from Sanghar at Rs 6500 and 200 bales from Liaquatpur at Rs 7000.
Since there is a huge demand for laundry dryers in Korea, four years ago LG, the brand in the garment care electronics market, doubled the meeting lines for dryers at the plant.
This year, LG aims to beef up global presence of the Tromm brand, for the company’s garment-related home appliances. As of today, according to the official the annual capacity of the plant expanded from 500,000 units to 5 million through innovative efforts to improve the productivity.
LG has been eyeing on the expanding dryer market for the last 10 years also LG has been making the history of garment care systems since launching the country’s first washing machine in 1969 he says.
Certainly, sales of LG Tromm Dryers poured 10 folds as of April and the demand is still on the rise due to limited space for drying laundries and also the growing public concerns about worsening air quality at home. The company forecasts the total sales units of dryers here to reach 600,000 by the end of this year.
The company’s eventual goal is to offer total solutions for efficient and effective clothes management step by step from washing, drying to keeping clothes tidy. And the final step of clothes management would be a solution for folding the cleaned clothes, says Lyu.
The event, held by the MoIT and the European Trade Policy and Investment Support Project (MUTRAP), aimed to seek feedback on a draft plan on Vietnam’s industrial restructuring for 2017-2020.
Le Tien Truong, General Director of the Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, says that many data on the textile and garment industry in the draft are incorrect such as labour productivity, added value or import. Therefore, the plan’s reliability remains modest and it needs overhauling.
The plan says labour productivity must be raised by 5 percent to improve competitiveness but it is simply a target. The plan does not mention any processes to realise that target.
Meanwhile, Vietnam currently ranks fifth among the countries with highest labour productivity in fibre and textile production. It follows China in terms of labour productivity in garment manufacturing.
Nguyen Tue Anh, Deputy Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, stated the MoIT’s plan needs to further clarify the bottlenecks and their causes in the development of industries so as to devise effective solutions.
Director General of the MoIT’s Planning Department Duong Duy Hung confessed that it is necessary to have a clearer plan which must point out major bottlenecks and detail restructuring processes in order to focus resources on right areas, thus creating more substantive improvements.
Industrial production value in Vietnam has surged by nearly 3.5 times it makes up about 31-32 percent of the country’s GDP, according to the MoIT.In recent years, electronics, textile-garment and footwear have become key exports, accounting for over 60 percent of the country’s total export revenue. However, MoIT Deputy Minister Cao Quoc Hung commented that, the country still ranks 101st among 143 countries in terms of the per capita added value in processing and manufacturing industries. Its industrial labour productivity is still outpaced by developed nations and other countries in the region. This is a worrying problem when Vietnam is now just in the initial stage of industrialization and so the draft plan on industrial restructuring has been built to promote substantive industrial restructuring, he noted.
The area under cotton globally is likely to expand by five per cent in the 2017-18 season.
In India, cotton area is forecast to increase by seven per cent as farmers are encouraged by better returns due to high cotton prices and improved yields in 2016-17. Production could increase by three per cent.
In China, cotton area may expand by three per cent due to the stable cotton policy and high cotton prices. Production in China is expected to rise by one per cent, the first increase in five seasons.
Similarly, harvested cotton area in the United States is forecast to expand by 12 per cent and production could grow by eight per cent.
Unlike the other top cotton producers, area in Uzbekistan is expected to contract by four per cent in accordance with government plans to reduce areas where yields are low, and use them for other agricultural products. However plentiful soil moisture may improve the average yield by one per cent. Uzbekistan’s cotton production is projected to decline by two per cent.
World cotton mill use is expected to surpass world production for the third consecutive season. World consumption is projected to increase by two per cent.
Yiwu Tex will be held in China, June 13 to 15, 2017.Top-notch knitting and hosiery enterprises will present their technology and production equipment.
Among these are Zhejiang Yexiao and Hefei Opek. Zhejiang Yexiao is a knitting machinery product development and manufacturing enterprise. Hefei Opek is a fully computerized jacquard hat and scarf knitting machine manufacturer.
Zhejiang Yexiao will mainly display computerized hosiery machines and flat knitting machines, along with its star product, the 6F Computer Terry / Flat Machine, which is capable of weaving one main color and five secondary colors for each line and in which each sock can be weaved in thirteen colors. It is also capable of weaving 3D pattern socks and is equipped with a stepping motor to regulate tension of yarns and weaving density.
Hefei Opek will showcase the Opek 365 H-Speed Hat and Scarf Knitting Machine, which features advanced technology from Germany, fast weaving of various complex patterns and colors with high precision, and supports customized knitting based on product design features.
Other exhibitors participating in the show are Santoni (Italy), Yamagen (Hong Kong), Groz-Beckert (Germany).
In addition to the Functional Knitting Machinery Zone, Yiwu Tex 2017 will also feature the Smart Apparel Machinery Zone and the Digital Printing Machinery Zone.
