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Birla Cellulose has always been at the forefront of the revolution in viscose staple fibers. It charted a new course in fashion by entering the retail segment with its brand Liva. This was created in-house, and the fiber is a champion of sustainability and has created history with its fluidity and softness and versatility. Now, the company has launched an innovation called Liva Snow, which is optically white fiber. Since customers are looking at something which will make them look fresh, Birla Cellulose is planning to enter antimicrobials, which are exotic and functional based fibers.
The company caters to domestic and international textile brands such as Target and Marks & Spencer, besides its own brands like Van Heusen, Allen Solly and Louis Philippe. The company also has sub-brands called Birla Modal, Birla Viscose, Birla Spunshades and Birla Excel, among others. It has fully integrated manufacturing facilities extending from plantation to pulp to fiber in countries such as Canada, Laos, Sweden and fiber plants in China, Indonesia and Thailand.
Birla Cellulose is the fiber division of the Aditya Birla Group. In the global market, it’s working on programs with the value chain, not much with the consumer. It has newer structures and newer melanges. These are the main focus areas.
Notations, a US garment wholesaler has agreed to pay a million dollars in damages and implement measures designed to prevent future fraud by Notations or its business partners. The wholesaler repeatedly ignored warning signs that its business partner, which imported garments from China, was engaged in a scheme to underpay customs duties owed on the imported garments it sold to Notations.
Yingshun Garments, an importer of women’s apparel manufactured in China, and Import Global Designs and Olgrem, successor entities to Yingshun, engaged in a double-invoice scheme whereby Yingshun and later Import Global and Olgrem presented false and fraudulent invoices showing prices for imported garments that were discounted by 75 per cent or more for the purpose of avoiding customs duties on the garments.
Notations, which was Yingshun’s biggest customer, aided the fraudulent scheme by ignoring warning signs that Yingshun’s irregular business practices were highly suggestive of fraud. As a part of the settlement, Notations has agreed to implement a written compliance policy that will include measures to educate its employees on identifying red flags for fraud in import transactions, to monitor the conduct of its business partners who act as importers of overseas goods and to report all potentially fraudulent conduct.
US retailer Target will source 100 per cent sustainable cotton by 2022 for use in its owned and exclusive national brands in apparel and home ware. The first step will be partnering vendors to map the supply chain for each product containing cotton. This mapping will require considerable time and effort in view of the complex nature of the cotton industry. But Target believes these changes can be implemented provided that companies work with vendors to map supply chains to improve transparency.
Other measures include: using water as efficiently as possible, especially important in areas where clean water is scarce; using chemicals and other inputs as efficiently as possible; improving soil health on the land where they farm; and promoting ethical working conditions – making sure no forced labor is used during the process.
Target is recognized as a leader in innovation. It has announced the introduction of a new policy to help guide and inform other companies on how best to implement sustainable cotton programs. This sustainable cotton policy is founded in part upon the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Target is an upscale discount retailer that provides high quality, on-trend merchandise at attractive prices. It has 1,816 stores in the United States.
While spinning and weaving segments of the synthetic textile industry have welcomed GST, traders in the industry are not so enthusiastic. Small and medium enterprises with an annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crores have been allowed to file quarterly income returns and pay tax instead of the current provision of monthly filings.
The weaving community has welcomed the tax rate revision, along with the extension of the reverse charge mechanism till March 2018. There has been a reduction in tax rates on manmade yarn from 18 per cent to 12 per cent. The GST levy on job work has been cut from 12 per cent to five per cent.
Weavers welcome the quarterly returns for entities with a turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crores but want this provision extended to the entire small and medium industry, irrespective of turnover amounts. The reduced rate of GST is expected to greatly benefit the spinning and power loom sectors, besides improving on global competitiveness and helping ensure the country’s poor are clothed at an affordable cost.
But traders say those below a turnover of Rs 2 crores have to be kept out of the tax net. There are roughly around 65,000 to 75,000 traders in the Rs 50,000 crore synthetic textile industry in Surat.
Raymond has partnered Woolmark to create a khadi wool line. The aim is to position khadi as a fashionable fabric and empower artisans in rural India. This is a first of its kind collection in pure merino wool and blended wool.
Raymond is currently working with over 20 clusters in Rajasthan and Himachal Pradesh and J&K to develop designs in pure merino wool and blended wool collections. As a part of the design intervention in more than 100 khadi clusters, Raymond also provides technical expertise to artisans to enhance product quality. The company wants to take khadi from the villages of India to international fashion ramps. The association with the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) is expected to generate three million additional man-hours of employment for khadi artisans annually on a sustained basis.
Woolmark wants to strengthen merino wool’s position as a luxurious and versatile fiber in the market. The khadi wool collection developed with Raymond demonstrates cutting-edge innovation, comfort and is also a part of Woolmark’s Grown in Australia, Made in India effort to explore merino wool’s potential in India. Merino wool is an eco-friendly fiber with biodegradable properties.
Raymond is a worsted suiting manufacturer that offers end-to-end solutions for fabrics and garmenting. Woolmark is the global authority on wool.
Iconic British fashion brand Matchless London has unveiled a leather Putin jacket inspired by the President of Russia. It is the first Matchless fashion product from high tech leather that resists the extreme cold, up to minus 40 degrees Celsius. The vintage brown jacket is equipped with exclusive hand-made zipper and has an exclusive hand-made zipper. Pure white goose and shearling collar elevate it to top luxury standards.
This is the brand’s way of acclaiming Russian President Vladimir Putin. It sees him as a modern super hero, known for his strong character, brutal image, sense of humour and calmness as a world leader. Putin rides horses and motorcycles, plays ice hockey and practices judo.
The jacket is introduced to mark Putin’s 65th birthday on October 7. All Putin jackets will bear the number 6595 on the sleeve. In time Matchless will have a Putin-inspired line including parkas, coats and other jackets from wax cotton and high performance leather.
Matchless London is the iconic British fashion brand of outerwear clothing and accessories from high performance materials. The company started in 1899 as a manufacturer of motorcycles in Great Britain. Matchless was the first motorcycle brand that launched its own clothing line for bikers.
Eight years back the United States introduced the Earned Import Allowance Program (EIAP) meant to boost Dominican apparel exports to the US. The program offers Dominican manufacturers who produce certain products using US fabric a tax credit enabling them to export other eligible products made with non-US fabric to the US without paying duty. But the program wasn’t implemented effectively. For the third year running, only five of the 12 registered firms are currently using the program.
The 2016 decline in US imports from Dominican Republic has been attributed to increased imports from Haiti, which offers lower labor costs and trade preferences under the HOPE/HELP programs that provide more sourcing flexibility and a wider range of coverage than the EIAP program, along with a tariff preference level for woven apparel from Haiti that allows the use of third-country fabric up to a specified level.
Recommendations for making EIAP more effective include reducing the 2-for-1 ratio of mandatory use of US-to-foreign fabric to a 1-for-1 ratio; expanding the program coverage to include other types of fabrics and products; and lifting the requirement that dyeing and finishing the eligible fabrics must take place in the US.
Losses have widened for Benetton following a restructure in 2015, where it decided to refocus on United Colors of Benetton and its sister company Sisley. In 2016, turnover was down 8.5 per cent on the previous year. The Italian company held an event at the end of September, designed to immerse visitors in a story of color as told by garments. The aim was to create an experience that would stick in people's minds rather than put on a more ephemeral six-minute fashion show.
The installations comprised everything from furniture to prints, photography to live music and were grouped into eight color blocks from black through green. A diverse range of models were positioned around each station, kitted out in block colored outfits from the store's latest collection. The models were street-cast to ensure diversity and authenticity.
Benetton has always taken a slightly more creative and innovative approach. The first thing that springs to mind with talking about Benetton is color in all its expressions – from sparkling knits to well-known campaigns promoting multiculturalism. This new initiative is not only about fashion but an outward expression of everything the brand is about and brought to life creatively.
Basic infrastructure support to improve predictability of business trends; efficient functioning of Chittagong port and national airports; stable power tariff to enable uninterrupted growth in exports; stability in pricing of electricity and gas are what Bangladesh’s garment manufacturers are waiting for. They feel this will help them in a big way to set up long term plans and goals for their businesses. Incentives to the primary textile sector are expected to help increase raw material supply to the garment sector and result in an overall boost.
The garment sector in Bangladesh accounts for nearly 82 per cent of export receipts. The primary textile sector provides 85 per cent of the raw materials needed by the knitwear sector but just 40 per cent of those needed by the woven sector. Bangladesh garment makers have begun targeting emerging export destinations like India, China, and the Latin American countries that import garments worth billions of dollars annually.
The preferred choice for garment retailers and brands is still Bangladesh. The speedy recovery of global markets provides an opportunity on the export front. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest readymade garment exporter with advantages like a low labor cost, favorable business climate, and a well-established transport facility.
Russia and Uzbekistan intend to create a “green corridor” for supply of textile products. The two aim to further expand cooperation in textile industry which is a strategic centerpiece of the Uzbek economy due to the fact that Uzbekistan is the world’s sixth-largest cotton-growing country producing about 1.1 million tons of cotton fiber annually. Such a proposal was put forward during negotiations with the Russian delegation led by the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov in a narrow format says Uzbek Foreign Trade Minister Eler Ganiev.
Ganiev said, the potential is large. They are talking about production cooperation, the use of Uzbek yarn for production at Russian enterprises, the supply of finished textile products, knitted fabrics as well as cotton fabrics. They expect that by next year, the volume of trade in textile products could reach about $700 million. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan registered significant growth of almost 34 per cent in supplies of rolled ferrous metals and products made of ferrous metals from Russia.
All this creates opportunities for expansion and increase in production volumes both in Russia and in Uzbekistan, according to the Foreign Trade Minister. There are 961 enterprises in Uzbekistan with participation of Russian capital and 569 enterprises created with participation of investors from Uzbekistan in Russia. By the end of the year the republic intends to reach the $5 billion trade turnover level with Russia. Moreover, this year Russia has come out on top among Uzbekistan’s foreign trade partners. The production cooperation can make the most serious contribution to the development of bilateral trade relations.
