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Spanish textile companies would like to have their supplies from nearby Tunisia rather than from China or Bangladesh. These companies happen to be those that are active in areas like ready-to-wear, denim, lingerie, bathing suits and sportswear. To forge contacts with suppliers, they are visiting Tunisian textile and clothing factories.
The textile and clothing industry in Tunisia plays a critical role in the socio-economic development of the country as it accounts for more than 40 per cent of industrial employment. The industry provides jobs for an estimated 2,00,000 workers, 75 per cent of which are women.
Tunisia is looking to strengthen and improve its value chain and diversify its product offering. EU countries are the main customers of Tunisia for textiles with 36 per cent for France, 32 per cent in Italy, 10 per cent in Germany; followed by Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Spain.
Tunisia is among the top 15 garment suppliers in the world, and has the advantage of being close to the European market. It is the fifth largest supplier to the European Union as well as the leading trouser supplier to the EU. Other important products are work wear and lingerie. The main foreign investors in the apparel sector in Tunisia are France, Germany, Belgium and Italy.
Many Chinese companies like Texhong Textile, Luthai Textile, Bros Eastern and Huafu have built textile plants in Vietnam. By the end of 2015, Texhong Textile had around 2.2 million spindles and 572 sets of looms. Texhong’s yarn capacity is expected to rise 28 per cent to touch 2.81 million spindles in 2016 including 1.57 million spindles in China and 1.24 million spindles in Vietnam.
The first phase of Luthai Textile in Vietnam covering 10 million meters of yarn-dyed fabric started production in August 2016 and the rest covering 20 million meters is scheduled to begin batch production in mid-2017.
The project of Bros Eastern in Vietnam covering three stages is scheduled to start complete operation by the end of 2016, and Phase I and II have started production. The spinning capacity of Bros Eastern in Vietnam is expected to be around 0.5 million spindles by the end of 2016.
Huafu Top Dyed Melange Yarn owned more than 30 companies plants in 2015, with a total capacity of 1.35 million spindles including around 0.12 million spindles in Vietnam. Huafu intends to expand by 0.08 million spindles in Vietnam annually in the next two years. The spinning capacity is expected to reach 0.28 million spindles by the end of 2017.
Based on current market supply and demand condition and market operation status, China state cotton reserves will not be arranged during the period when new cotton comes into the market (till end February 2017), says the a news released by National Development and Reform Commission and Ministry of Finance, China.
Moreover, state cotton reserves sales of 2017 will begin from March 6, till August end. In principle, the daily selling volumes will be 30,000 tons, but if domestic and international cotton prices go up during a period and more than 70 per cent of reserved cotton is sold per day for three days in a week, the daily selling volumes can be added and the selling time can be extended, it has been noted.
Pakistan’s continued aggression has led to suspension of imports of cotton from India though unannounced. Sources in the textile sector say high officials of the plant protection department that works under federal ministry of food security have issued verbal orders to the staff to stop issuing permits of import of cotton. The issuance of import permits from India has been suspended for three days.
Sources claimed many textile exporting manufacturers import cotton as well as chemical dyes from India in heavy quantities. Import of cotton without proper permit has been banned. Some importers were importing cotton without permit. This facility has been cancelled after recent tensions with India.
Last month, traders from Gujarat decided to stop supplying vegetables especially tomatoes and chilli to Pakistan, it is understood. Ahmedabad General Commission Agent Association general secretary Ahmed Patel claimed that Gujarat used to send 50 trucks with 10 tons of vegetables, mainly tomatoes and chillies to Pakistan from the Wagah border but this has been stopped since the last two days considering the tension between the two countries. This happens to be the first time in almost two decades that Gujarat traders decided to stop supply of essential vegetables to Pakistan, he said.
The Alliance has rejected reports of four global rights groups saying that in several areas, it misrepresented and oversimplified the complexities of the western retailers' platforms including efforts of the Accord to improve worker safety in Bangladesh. Observed Ellen O'Kane Tauscher, Independent Chair of Alliance, in a statement that the Alliance stands by its progress which is validated by an accomplished team of on-the-ground engineers and professional staff and Alliance remains committed to its mission of creating a safer environment for millions of workers that make a living in Bangladeshi factories.
The Accord has never raised any of the issues contained in this report. While some may seek to set up a false sense of competition between the two organizations (Alliance and Accord), Alliance continues to work closely together on the ground to advance factory safety on behalf of millions of garment workers in Bangladesh, she added.
Tauscher’s statement came one day after four global rights groups' allegation that the Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety has overplayed progress with rosy status reports while workers' lives remain at risk. The rights groups, namely, International Labour Rights Forum, Worker Rights Consortium, Clean Clothes Campaign and Maquila Solidarity Network prepared the report based on 175 factories which supply apparels to one or more of these five Alliance member-corporations-Walmart, Gap, Target, Hudson Bay and VF Corporation and for which the Accord publishes detailed progress reports.
The Alliance and its member-companies share the same ultimate goal as that of The Accord in creating a safer future for garment workers of Bangladesh, she said. The Alliance remains committed to working collaboratively with the Accord, the National Action Plan and other key stakeholders to achieve this goal over the next 18 months, she reiterated.
With sustainability becoming the buzzword apparel brands looking to make lesser impact on the environment now have access to more material data to help them reach sustainability goals. The Sustainable Apparel Coalition (SAC), an industry-wide group working to reduce the environmental and social impacts of products around the world, released a new and improved version of its Higg Materials Sustainability Index (Higg MSI) where TENCEL® fabric scored better than around 70 per cent of textiles measured.
Originally developed by Nike, the scoring tool was adopted by the SAC in 2012. The body has since updated the methodology, technology and data to create an easy-to-use public tool that measures and communicates the environmental impact of thousands of materials used in creating apparel, footwear and home textile products. The Higg MSI’s purpose is to provide information about materials and their impacts from extraction through manufacturing in a user-friendly way, creating a benchmark and allowing design teams and supply chain partners to pick less harmful options during design and development. It uses a common language around materials for simplified communication.
TENCEL® fabric, made from the Lenzing branded fiber product of the same name (its generic name is Lyocell), scored 34 on the Higg MSI. By comparison with other fiber materials combined with their default fabric production and dyeing and finishing, a hypothetic unbranded (generic) Lyocell fabric receives 44, silk receives 128 and cotton gets 88. Lyocell’s score is based primarily on data Lenzing submitted to show how TENCEL® ranked versus other commonly used fibers. The score, however, does not represent any specific producer.
Oman wants to invest in Bangladesh. Prospective sectors include leather, jute, furniture, handicrafts and others. Oman, an Islamic country, sees many similarities with Bangladesh.
Bangladesh mainly exports agricultural and engineering products, footwear, frozen foods, plastic goods, jute and jute goods to Oman while it imports rubber, mineral products, chemical and textiles.
Cooperation in agriculture and fisheries is another prospective area where both the parties are working together. Another is the energy sector. Bangladesh is seeking investment from Middle Eastern countries in different sectors. Oman has a lot of cash and is looking for good investment destinations. So if Bangladesh provides a favorable regime for Middle Eastern investment, it will ultimately help the country to create more employment opportunities and to grow more.
The United States is currently facing sluggish growth while the Euro zone is reeling under a debt crisis. These two are the biggest destinations of Bangladesh’s export items and also the country gets most of its foreign investment from these regions. Due to the bad conditions in those countries, Bangladesh’s export growth is slowing down while foreign investment is drying up. In this backdrop, the future for Bangladesh is the Middle East.
Following the demonetization, mills want the working capital limit to be enhanced by 50 per cent. Stocks have started piling up across the value chain of the industry and textile units say they are not in a position to collect any receivables. The result is that the cash flow of the textile industry has been seriously affected.
The industry assumes it would take at least six months to reach normalcy but in the meantime cotton prices have increased by around Rs 2,000 per candy as arrivals in the market came to a grinding halt during the first ten days after demonetisation.
The spinning sector was already reeling under a recession due to a sharp fall in yarn exports and now the withdrawal of around 86 per cent of the currency in circulation has led to a severe shortage of funds for regular operations such as purchasing the raw material, that is, cotton, and the sale of finished goods.
Textile retail showrooms and shops across the nation have been hit by the cash-crunch and low sales as customers have been saddled with Rs 2000 notes which they don’t know what to do with.
A two month moratorium has been granted for loans up to a crore, but the textile industry says it needs at least a year’s moratorium for repayment of the dues and interest.
The Annual Conference (2016) of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF) was held in Jaipur recently. The Committee of Management of the Federation unanimously elected Kenya-based Jaswinder Bedi as the new President of the Federation. He would hold office for the next two years. Furthermore, the committee elected Kihak Sung (Korea Rep.) and Ruizhe SUN (China P R) as vice presidents and reconfirmed Peter Gnagi (Switzerland) as ITMF treasurer.
The committee also elected members of the non-executive board. The names are: Raffael Cervone (Brazil), John Cheh (Hong Kong, China), Muharrem Kayhan (Turkey), Andrew Macdonald (Brazil), Heinz Michel (Switzerland), B K Patodia (India), K V Srinivasan (India), Bassem Sultan (Egypt) and Loek de Vries (Netherlands). In recognition of his outstanding contribution to the Federation during his six years service as ITMF Vice President (2010-14) and ITMF President (2014-16) Tiankai WANG (China PR) was appointed Honorary Life Member of the Federation.
The European Union may sign the textile protocol with Uzbekistan after all. Five years ago it had decided not to sign because Uzbekistan was known to use child labor and forced adult labor in its textile production units.
But in 2013, Uzbekistan started permitting the ILO to monitor the annual harvest. Owing to boycott from major clothing manufacturers, Uzbekistan drastically cut down on child labor. So the ILO came to the conclusion that the use of children in cotton harvest had become rare and sporadic. In effect, it said, the practice of forced labor and child labor was effectively in the process of being eradicated.
However, human rights groups insist that forced labor has taken the place of child labor and continues to be used on a massive, nationwide scale in Uzbekistan. They say, independent monitors are harassed and not being allowed to examine the situation as closely as they would like to. They point to the fact that no concrete reforms have been implemented and no substantial results are visible. So the groups say the protocol should be signed only after thought and care. The issue will be put to vote in December.
