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One of the most awaited events, India Couture Week 2017 will celebrate 10 years this month. The Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI) is all set to bring the most extravagant showcase this month.
The fashion show will be a seven-day affair starting from 24 July at the Taj Palace hotel and at a few off-site locations in Delhi. Like always, the chosen locations will be exciting and astonishing for all fashionistas.
The fashion event will witness India's top 14 couturiers including Anita Dongre, Tarun Tahiliani, and Varun Bahl and more. The designers will set the mood for trends relevant to India and its celebration of life with colours, sheer, and shine.
Sunil Sethi, President, FDCI says that this year is the most momentous year as 10 years of Couture Week has been an incredible journey, which has been the only event in the country to offer a prestigious platform to couturiers to showcase their talent in offering irrepressible indulgence. The journey impossible without the support of board members and the FDCI team. The company looks forward to presenting many more editions of this magical event as we take it to a new high with seven days.
Three US companies say China, India, South Korea and Vietnam dump fine denier polyester staple fiber (PSF) in the US market with a damping margin of 21.43 per cent to 103.6 per cent.
The three US enterprises are DAK Americas, Nan Ya Plastics and Auriga Polymers.
Virgin and recycled manufactures contributed to 98 per cent of total polyester staple fiber imports to the US in 2016. US imports of polyester staple fiber rose by 7.6 per cent a year from 2011 to 2016 while exports during this time fell annually by nine per cent on an average.
China, South Korea and India have been the US’s top three sources of PSF since 2011. Imports from China, India, South Korea and Vietnam account for around 79 per cent of the total.
China’s polyester staple fiber export volume has continued to grow since 2011 and exceeded one million tons in 2016. In the past six years, the average export volume to the US was around 21 per cent of the average total. However the proportion of exports to this country mildly fluctuated downward from the highest of 25 per cent in 2011 to 19 per cent in the first five months of 2017.
At least eight people were killed and up to 50 injured after a boiler exploded at a garment factory in Bangladesh. The explosion was so powerful it destroyed parts of the factory, including a roof and several walls.
The factory is owned by textiles manufacturer Multifabs, which makes clothing for mostly European brands.
Bangladesh has more than 4,500 garment factories employing four million mostly female workers at a minimum monthly wage. The industry is notorious for poor workplace safety, with many of the factories lacking basic equipment such as ventilation and air coolers.
In April 2013, the nine-story Rana Plaza factory complex collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
The country and international buyers have been trying to improve working conditions in the garment sector, which adds about 29 billion dollars in terms of exports to the country's economy.
In Bangladesh, 3.5 million workers in 4,825 garment factories produce goods for export to the global market, principally Europe and North America. The Bangladeshi garment industry generates 80 per cent of the country’s total export revenue. However the wealth generated by this sector has led to few improvements in the lives of garment workers, 85 per cent of whom are women.
Bangladesh’s garment factory owners have expressed their deep displeasure over a unilateral decision made by EU brands and retailers to extend the presence of Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh by three years.
They say Bangladesh is a sovereign country and that the unilateral decision is not a sign of partnership. They add that without consultation with stakeholders, Accord cannot extend its timeframe. If Accord wants to work after 2018, it would have to send a proposal in this regard to the government of Bangladesh.
At the OECD Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct in Paris on June 29 EU retailers and global trade unions announced the extension of the agreement on Accord for a second term saying that the agreement will enter into effect when the current Accord expires in May 2018.
Accord is a European retailers’ platform. Accord conducted a successful pilot safety committee training program at 56 supplier factories having registered trade unions and the initiative has formed safety committees in 33 of the factories.
If any factory seeks financial assistance for remediation, Accord would facilitate negotiation over the issue between the lead buyers and manufacturers.
A total of 1,388 out of the 1,452 readymade garment factories inspected by Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh are lagging behind the schedule in implementing corrective action plan while remediation in 57 factories are progressing as per schedule.
For the first quarter of 2017 Abercrombie & Fitch’s net sales were down four per cent and gross margin was pressured by steep traffic headwinds and more promotional activity than had been planned.
Comparable sales were in line with expectations and have improved sequentially over the past few quarters across all brands, geographies and channels. Comp sales were down ten per cent.
Abercrombie & Fitch expects gross profit rate for the year to be slightly below last year’s adjusted rate of 61 per cent.
The company plans to close 60 stores in the US by the end of this year, and to remodel 47 stores and open seven full-price stores and two outlets. Strategic initiatives include strengthening its omni channel presence, engaging with customers through loyalty programs and social media, renovating stores through an updated prototype model and partnering with wholesalers and franchisers to reach more consumers.
Abercrombie & Fitch expects comp sales to remain challenging for the full year and to see trend improvements in the second half of the year. The company expects the gross profit rate for the year to be slightly lower than last year’s adjusted rate of 61 per cent. The company expects operating expenses to be down three per cent from last year, with 65 per cent of the reduction occurring in the second half of the year.
One of the global luxury fashion brands Hugo Boss, has joined more than 460 partners from across the global textile supply chain to join the ‘Cotton Leads’ program, which aims to raise awareness of responsible best practice in the USA and Australian cotton sectors.
Members of the initiative include US retailers such as Macy’s, Target, Kohls, Aeropostale, Brooks Brothers as well as a host of suppliers to the global cotton textile supply chain.
The Cotton Leads program says it intends to raise awareness of responsible cotton production practices; strict regulations that protect the environment and people, and points to nation-wide cotton research and development programs and sustainability benchmarking that are common to both the US and Australian cotton sectors.
Cotton Australia CEO Adam Kay noted that brands and retailers are demonstrating a genuine desire to deliver products made from responsibly-produced raw materials, but also acknowledged it is not the only sustainable cotton initiative on the market.
Just as Hugo boss is a leading global fashion brand, the Cotton Leads program leads the way in both responsible cotton production, and the sharing of best practices and other educational resources with the global cotton community.
The Green Textile City Initiative is aimed at scaling up sustainability efforts in large textile clusters in China. The initiative has been launched in partnership with leading global apparel retailers and fashion brands. The belief is that a sustainable textile industry will benefit the private sector while supporting a better environment in China and that best practices can drive significant environmental improvement and cost savings for apparel and textile supply chains.
The initiative provides sector-level capacity building and technical training for over 100 textile mills in three textile cities. Half of the trained mills implemented resource efficiency projects on their own. China produces more than half of the world’s textile fabrics, with 267 billion dollars in exports in 2016, but this water-and-energy intensive sector has a large environmental footprint.
In the Greater Suzhou Area alone, 23 textile mills implemented 138 factory projects last year, saving 8.4 million dollars in water, energy, and chemical operating costs. These projects had an average payback of 17 months and collectively saved four million cubic meters of water and 30,000 tons of coal per year. The initiative is an example of how partnerships and expertise of multiple stakeholders can be leveraged to scale up resource efficiency in manufacturing supply chains.
In a partial relief for manmade textile units, GST on texurising, twisting, weaving and yarn dyeing has been reduced from 18 per cent to five per cent. But despite the relief, several looms and fabric makers will still have unutilised credit on their books, raising the cost of fabric by eight to ten per cent.
Partially oriented yarn, polyester filament yarn and staple fiber manufactured by virgin chips/granules are covered under the umbrella of manmade fibers and liable to be taxed at 18 per cent under GST. But other processes of textile yarn units, such as twisting, warping, doubling, dyeing, printing, bleaching, mercerising, texturing, multi-folding, cabeling, air mingiling, air-texturising, sizing etc, are not covered under the umbrella of manmade fibers. The job work rate of such processes at textile yarn units falls under the five per cent GST slab.
Manufacturers and exporters who make garments and buy fabric or do all the processes outside will also suffer as the duty refund will have to bear the burden of unutilised credit. They will be at a disadvantageous position as compared to composite mills that do all processes in-house. The textile industry has a pivotal position in the Indian economy. It is strong and competitive across the value chain. India has an abundant supply of raw material like cotton, wool, silk, jute, and manmade fiber.
Pakistan may impose a cess on imports and exports of textile products. The aim is to generate funds for the development and promotion of textile sector. After the imposition of the new development cess, the textile value chain will be exempt from the export development surcharge, the cotton cess, textile cess and the cotton standardization fee.
The proposed cess is aimed at helping the textile industry in Pakistan achieve sustainable growth, employment generation, increased productivity and value addition through the textile chain.
The cess will be levied and collected on imports and exports of all textile products. The rate of cess on imports and exports of textile products will be 0.2 per cent of the value of imports. In case of partial or short realization of export proceeds, the cess would be collected by authorized dealers at 0.2 per cent of the full FOB value of the goods shipped.
However, bed wear exporters will not support the proposed legislation. They say core issues that the industry is grappling with need to be addressed and that if the cess comes into effect the industry would end up with more bureaucracy, creating more problems for the industry. They say they are already faced with a liquidity crisis and loss of competitiveness due to expensive utilities, high cost of doing business, blocked refunds etc.
As per an official statement, China's securities regulator has approved the launch of cotton yarn futures on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange. The cotton yarn futures, together with cotton futures already traded, will help companies in the industry to hedge against and improve the management of risks, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) stated.
Futures contracts obligate investors to buy or sell the underlying assets at a predetermined price at a specified time, helping investors mitigate risks of price volatilities.
As per the CSRC large and frequent fluctuations in cotton yarn prices have had negative impacts on related industries in the past few years, and the launch of the cotton yarn futures will be an answer to market demand.
The date for the commencement of trading will be announced later. China has been developing its commodity derivatives market and plans to gradually open it up to foreign investors. Earlier in April, the country launched white sugar options, the second commodity options after soybean meal. China launched soymeal and sugar options earlier this year, and is expected to soon launch a new hog futures contract.
