FW
China and the European Union (EU) have signed a MoU on circular economy. This implies reducing waste to a minimum and re-using, repairing, and recycling existing materials and products.
The agreement could see the world’s two largest economies align key circular economy mechanisms and pave the way for the development of product standards and policies, which could create the conditions for a system shift on a global scale towards a low carbon, regenerative economy.
Co-operation by the two economic powerhouses in this field will cover strategies, legislation, policies and research in areas of mutual interest. It will address management systems and policy tools such as eco-design, eco-labeling, extended producer responsibility and green supply chains as well as financing of the circular economy. Both sides will exchange best practice in key fields such as industrial parks, chemicals, plastics and waste.
A transition to a circular economy in China’s cities could have numerous local benefits, including making goods and services more affordable for citizens, as well as reducing the impacts normally associated with middle class lifestyles, such as traffic congestion and air pollution. Europe can add to its GDP by 2030 by moving to a circular economy, while also halving its Co2 emissions.
China has lodged an additional complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regarding the United States' proposed tariffs on $200 billion (S$272 billion) worth of Chinese imports. These tariff hikes targeting Chinese goods were based on Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, its domestic trade law. The US unilaterally launched a Section 301 investigation against China last year despite opposition from China and the international community.
It released an investigation report in March, and imposed tariffs on US$34 billion worth of Chinese goods on July 6 in disregard of 91 per cent opposition in the comments it received.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration also retaliated against the unjustified tariffs imposed by China in response to US steel and aluminum duties. The US Trade Representative launched formal challenges at the WTO against China, the European Union, Canada, Mexico and Turkey for retaliating against steel and aluminum tariffs.
Japan has become the second country to complete domestic procedures for the Trans-Pacific Partnership-11 agreement, officially known as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The move comes amid significant global headwinds over trade. Tokyo recently stepped up its efforts to prevent the United States from moving ahead with tariffs on automotive imports.
Japan announced it had completed the domestic procedures for the TPP-11 on the day it formally notified New Zealand, which is designated as the depositary for such declarations. The agreement specifies that the TPP-11 will enter into force 60 days after at least six signatories have given written notice of the completion of any relevant domestic legal procedures.
"On positive fallout of the ongoing turmoil between China and the US, is that Beijing has lowered duties on many Indian imports and removed them for 28 drugs, including anti-cancer drugs. As a favour, India has removed tariffs on over 3,000 goods from China and other Asian countries. Trade experts and Chinese officials say this progress, reflected in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its interest in upgrading India’s poor infrastructure would result in massive opportunities for India. The China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has in the past two years given India nearly 30 per cent of its funds, most of which were allocated for infrastructure development in electricity and transportation."
With US tariff war, are there chances of Asia’s superpowers such as India & China uniting to fight the demon? It’s a tricky question indeed going by trade stats, the US buys more from China than India: 22 per cent of its imports come from China, 2.1 per cent from India. About 19 per cent of China’s exports go to the US and 16 per cent of India’s. On the whole, India could be affected less by the trade war than China.
On positive fallout of the ongoing turmoil between China and the US, is that Beijing has lowered duties on many Indian imports and removed them for 28 drugs, including anti-cancer drugs. As a favour, India has removed tariffs on over 3,000 goods from China and other Asian countries. Trade experts and Chinese officials say this progress, reflected in its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its interest in upgrading India’s poor infrastructure would result in massive opportunities for India. The China-initiated Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has in the past two years given India nearly 30 per cent of its funds, most of which were allocated for infrastructure development in electricity and transportation.
India’s positioning
With China imposing tariff barriers on US products, Indian exports to China is expected to boom. Stats have
another story to tell, India’s imports ($61 billion) from China were six times its exports ($10 billion) in 2016-17, and its trade deficit with China increased more than two-fold from $16 billion in 2007-08 to $51 billion in 2016. Moreover, restrictions on market access in China and the lack of manufacturing capability in some technology items indicate that India may not be able to export much more technology to China and benefit much from a US-China trade war. Cotton has been one of India’s leading exports to China, which is the largest market for India’s cotton yarn. But Vietnamese cotton is posing a great threat in India’s journey by reducing exports to almost half from $2.2 billion in 2013 to $1.1 billion in 2016. This amounted to a decline of 67 per cent since 2011-12.
Roadblocks
Besides this, India has not yet shown keenness to support or join China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And it is concerned about China’s ambitious global infrastructure plans, which have borne fruit in projects in the Indian Ocean. The BRI projects include the building of ports and roads from Myanmar to Sri Lanka and Pakistan. For India, the $60 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which runs through the disputed Pakistani-occupied Kashmir, is the biggest roadblock in being associated to the project.
Amid all these political and economic tensions, it seems unlikely that India will gain major impetus in its exports from the US-China trade war. While it might be true that Trump’s trade war can prompt India and China to search for a common ground, but a big question mark surrounds over the chances of real improvement in their bilateral trade and political ties.
Research institute Worn Again Technologies has successfully reached its investment target of £5 million to facilitate acceleration of its breakthrough polymer recycling technology. The patented process can separate, decontaminate and extract polyester polymers and cellulose from hitherto non-reusable textiles; enabling these fibres to be used in the manufacture of new garments an indefinite number of times.
The institute’s innovation would facilitate the separation of both polyester and cotton, thus producing two end products that Worn Again believe to be of comparable quality and price to the equivalent virgin resources. The latest financial boosts received by Worn Again have given the organisation belief that the apparel sector is beginning to think with the future in mind.
Last month, Worn Again was awarded a grant to become the first chemical recycling technology to be Cradle to Cradle (C2C) certified. Others investments includes H&M, Sulzer Chemtech, Himes Corporation, Directex and Future Tech Lab. Worn Again has also partnered with Qvartz, a Nordic management consultancy firm to help formulate partnership development and commercialisation model.
Uzbekistan and Germany will expand bilateral cooperation. Both countries came to an agreement on investments, three framework agreements and six export contracts. Both sides also discussed issues of increasing exports of finished textile products to the European market. The countries want to use the full potential of economic cooperation. Germany’s economic ties with Uzbekistan are modest.
During the negotiations, issues of developing a program of technical assistance and the transfer of knowledge in the field of textile production, design, dyeing, finishing were discussed. Germany remains one of the main trade and economic partners of Uzbekistan in Europe. Germany stands seventh in overall commodity turnover of Uzbekistan with other countries in 2016.
The main indicators of mutual trade turnover fell for Germany (almost 90 per cent). The main reasons for the low turnover growth rates are conversion, bureaucratic obstacles and legal security.
As many as 123 enterprises operate in Uzbekistan with the participation of German companies, capital and advanced technologies. Large investment projects involving German banks are being implemented in various sectors of the economy. Investment projects for a total of more than a billion euro have been implemented in Uzbekistan jointly with German leading companies.
Vietnam’s cotton yarn exports are the fastest growing in the world, thanks to orders from the largest importer in the market, China. This dynamic is having a positive impact on US cotton exports to Southeast Asian countries.
The United States accounts for more than half of Vietnam's cotton imports, compared with a third just three years ago. These larger needs in Vietnam are likely to lead to record consumption in 2018-2019. Vietnamese mills continue to attract foreign investment, new or existing. Costs are much lower in Vietnam than in Japan or South Korea, and the country is attracting more and more foreign textile exporters, such as China, India and Pakistan. Vietnam's exports of cotton yarn to China have almost quintupled since 2012-2013, showing stronger links between the textile industries of both countries.
In 2016-17, Vietnam was the main destination for US cotton exports. For the moment, this continues to be true. Cotton is the most valuable agricultural product for the United States, accounting for about 40 per cent of the sector’s total exports.
Over the period from August 2017 to June 2018, US cotton exports to Vietnam again reached record levels. The world’s second largest importer of cotton, Vietnam helped propel US cotton exports in 2017-2018 to their highest level in a decade.
Archroma, a global leader in color and specialty chemicals towards sustainable solutions has collaborated with Ternua, an outdoor brand with a strong connection to nature. Together they have created EarthColors®patented technology, to create a capsule collection of recycled tee-shirts and sweatshirts, collecting, recycling and upcycling agricultural waste from the Basque region in Spain after food consumption.
Archroma’s award-winning EarthColors® is a traceable concept of plant-based dyes, sourced from up to 100 percent renewable resources. Archroma developed EarthColors® using non-edible waste products, from agriculture and herbal industries, to replace petroleum derived raw materials; which are the conventional raw materials used to synthesize dyes currently. This gives brands an alternative when looking for more natural ways of dyeing garments.
The Nutcycle collection uses walnut shells to make biomass-based dyes to color Ternua’s collection. Ternua’s vision was to collect walnut shells during the cider season, when cider houses typically serve walnuts with cider. It is estimated that up to 55,000kg of walnuts are consumed in the Basque region’s cider houses. The collaboration with Archroma aims at using walnut shells to make biomass-based dyes to color Ternua’s garments.
Verisk Maplecroft’s Human Rights Outlook 2018 warns of drastic job losses in South East Asia resulting from the onset of robot manufacturing, and that this is predicted to produce a spike in slavery and labor abuses in global supply chains as employers gain the upper hand with more workers fighting for fewer and fewer jobs.
This group of countries, or the ASEAN-5 are particularly at risk, due to the dependence of the workforce on low-skilled jobs and existing high levels of labor rights violations. All are currently rated as ‘high risk’ countries in Verisk Maplecroft’s Modern Slavery Index, but their rankings and scores are forecast to deteriorate when the full impact of automation is felt.
Another trend the report notes is the rising threat of violence against and criminalisation of human rights defenders, and the emerging efforts to guide how business responds to the problem. The report also assesses the growing impact of financial institutes on the sustainability debate.
India’s readymade garment exports in the first three months of the current fiscal fell by 16.57 per cent as compared to the same period of the last fiscal.
After reporting a eight per cent decline in fiscal ’18, exports of readymade garments fell by 21.40 per cent in April, 12.59 per cent in May and 7.8 per cent in June. In dollar terms, the decline in April, May and June 2018 was at 22.78 per cent, 16.57 per cent and 12.45 per cent respectively.
The sector has been hit hard by rising cotton prices coupled with issues such as GST as well as reduction in duty drawback rates and return on state levies. The beleaguered knitwear export sector has been passing through a challenging business environment. Knitwear exports have been declining since October 2017 on a month-on-month basis and the decline in exports for the second half of 2017-18 was 21 per cent. The most worrying factor is the negative trend in export growth is continuing in the current financial year.
However, India’s apparel market is expected to grow by 11 per cent to 12 per cent in the next seven years. The market grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 10 per cent from 2005 to 2017.
