FW
Farmers in South Carolina will be allowed to cultivate legal industrial hemp, which is defined federally as cannabis with a THC level below 0.3 per cent. Licensing to grow the crop mandates that growers must submit to a background check, among other requirements. Initially only 20 licenses will be issued the first year for 20 acres each. Applications will be accepted from July but it is unclear whether farmers will have enough time to grow this season.
The second year of cultivation 50 licenses will be issued for 50 acres each. After that, the number and size of permits that will be issued will be decided on.
Hemp is often considered an environmental super fiber. Hemp fabric is made from the fibers in the herbaceous plant of the species cannabis sativa. It's a high-yield crop that produces significantly more fiber per acre than either cotton or flax.
South Carolina wants to breathe life into some of its abandoned textile mills and make textiles in mills again. Cheaper labor overseas, technology and automation, international trade agreements and other conditions consistent with modernization, wages, education and economic diversification led to the demise of the textile industry in South Carolina from the 1970s through the 2000s.
The US women’s and men’s jeans market has rebounded after facing recent challenges, pushing up sales four per cent in 2016. However, while men are shopping for older styles, latest styles drive women’s sales.
Denim manufacturers and retailers are realizing the importance of striking a balance between giving consumers the features they know and love, and introducing them to some new elements. Women’s jeans introduced to the market within the past two years make up almost 70 per cent of the units sold in 2016 and nearly all the dollar gains for the year.
Older product offerings for women launched in 2013 or earlier retained 19 per cent of the units sold. However, these products were responsible for more than a third of the dollar losses for the year. Meanwhile men are still warming up to comfort stretch and new cuts. Most of the jeans sold for men in 2016 were older products that entered the market in 2013 or earlier. This was likely a factor why the men’s denim market grew at a slower rate than the women’s market.
Denim products introduced in 2016 were a much smaller portion of the men’s market but generated almost three-quarters of the dollars gained in the same year.
Applied DNA will tag 27.5 million pounds of cotton in the US for the 2017/2018 ginning season. The company expects to ship Signature DNA to mark 27.5 million pounds of cotton before the end of June 2017. It will tag, test, and track cotton.
Applied DNA is a provider of DNA-based supply chain security, anti-counterfeiting, and anti-theft technology. It meets the need for supply chain traceability, transparency, and trust within the cotton industry ecosystem with national retailers, their supply chain partners, and consumers.
America’s cotton producers will plant nearly eight per cent more cotton in 2017 than they did in 2016. Texas will lead all states in cotton production by a wide margin. Growers in the state indicated they will plant 5,932,500 acres of cotton in 2017. That number represents an increase of more than 2, 00,000 acres over 2016. Acres are going to cotton from grains due to very good cotton yields in 2016 and lower grain prices.
As the nation’s leading producer of extra long staple cotton, California is set to plant 1, 36,605 acres of Pima in 2017. The state’s remaining upland acreage (nearly 60,000 acres) is heavily dependent on seed companies who produce seed cotton in California. Still, conditions are bright for increased acreage in California in 2017, provided sufficient water resources are available.
Japan’s fast fashion brand Uniqlo’s supplier factories in China have poor working conditions. As factory workers’ base wages are too low to make ends meet, workers have no choice but to work overtime for 112 to 134 hours a month. This violated China’s legal upper limit on overtime of 36 hours a month. Women work 11 hours a day and are given only one or two days off in a month. Working hours may stretch from early in the morning until 10 pm or 11 pm.
When workers organized a strike in 2009, the company used gangsters to deal with the striking workers with physical violence. There have also been protests at Uniqlo in Indonesia. The aim was to draw attention to Uniqlo’s disregard for the fate of thousands of women who lost their jobs at Uniqlo's former supplier in Indonesia – and are still owed wages and severance payments. Uniqlo was evading accountability for workers who lost their jobs when a factory closed down in early 2015. The closure put 4,000 people out of work and pushed them into a desperate situation.
Fast Retailing claims it is keen on improving employees’ working conditions in order to fulfill its responsibility as a global company.
Deepak Perwani head of Pakistan Fashion Council has special plans for his country’s fashion industry. Other than showcasing designer collections, the Council will also be offering aspiring youngsters a chance to show their mettle on the ramp says Perwani.
According to Perwani, August 14 will see a special Millennial Show that will feature 10 promising designers. Talking about the fashion business in Pakistan that stands apart from its Indian counterpart, he says they may seem to be moving parallel but the Pakistani fashion is extremely cut-oriented. As per him yellows, oranges, greens and pinks are finding a place in their wardrobe. The fact that that their mindset is becoming more metrosexual
Having spent over seven years in the US, Perwani returned to the land of his origin because of the inspirational craftsmanship and designs to experiment with. That was more than two and half decades ago, and Perwani has had no regrets. Having steadily climbed the rungs to reach the top, he often takes to the hinterlands to help empower women of the minority communities by teaching them varied crafts that cater to city tastes. Perwani visited them every three months to talk to them, teach them stuff like how to make Rs 100 a day.
The proposed textile park in Warangal will offer units a host of benefits. This includes developing infrastructure around the surrounding villages to facilitate better connectivity to the park and special incentives like capital and power. Mill owners are assured of obtaining all necessary permissions in the shortest possible time.
Telangana’s vision is to have a fiber to fabric facility in the textile park. Everything right from spinning, dying to processing to finished goods facilities would be made available in the Mega Park. While textile parks in different parts of the country like Solapur, Tirupur and Surat are engaged in manufacturing specific categories of garments, the park in Warangal will cover all segments. The plan is to connect all spinning units both handlooms and power looms to the textile park. The park is coming up on 2,000 acres and around 1,200 acres have been earmarked in the first phase of development.
Telangana produces 60 lakh bales of cotton and consumption by local mills around 10 lakh bales. About 10 lakh bales are produced in erstwhile Warangal alone. About 33 spinning mills are operating in Telangana with a 20 lakh spindle capacity. The state is coming up with a new textile policy soon.
Textile Auxiliaries market expects to clock in good growth by 2024. The global textile auxiliaries market can be segmented based on type, application, process type, and geography. Based on application, the textile auxiliaries market can be segregated into apparels, automotive textiles, geotextiles, home furnishing, industrial textiles, smart textiles for military and defense.
In terms of process type, the global textile auxiliaries market can be classified into pre-treatment, finishing, and dyeing and printing. The pre-treatment process prepares the fabric for finishing and dyeing. Most textile auxiliaries are used during this process. Ability of textile auxiliaries to improve the durability of fabric during the pre-treatment process is anticipated to propel their consumption in the pre-treatment processing stage of fabric during the forecast period.
Based on geography, the global textile auxiliaries market can be divided into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. Textile auxiliary is a group of textile chemicals used for various functions at different stages of textile processing. Textile auxiliaries are employed during textile processing to increase durability and esthetic appeal of textile products.
Italy hopes to benefit from CETA, the free trade agreement between Canada and the EU. The agreement aims to promote international trade while safeguarding Europe's high quality standards, complying with product origin regulations and protecting trademarks. The deal took seven years of discussion to finalise.
Italy feels CETA would contribute to bolstering Italy’s current economic growth, which is still weak. The Italian sectors which are expected to benefit the most include fashion, footwear, food, furniture and industrial machinery.
The Canada-European Union CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) will create jobs, strengthen economic relations and boost Canada's trade with the world’s second largest market. It can increase Canadian-EU trade by 20 per cent.
CETA is a progressive free trade agreement which covers virtually all sectors and aspects of Canada-EU trade in order to eliminate or reduce barriers. At one time, only 25 per cent of EU tariff lines on Canadian goods were duty-free. With CETA, the EU will remove tariffs on 98 per cent of its tariff lines. Once CETA is fully implemented, the EU will have eliminated tariffs on 99 per cent of its tariff lines. But the full agreement is years off with regional and national parliaments needed to green light the agreement.
Britain has assured Bangladeshi exporters of duty-free access to its markets post Brexit. Exporters, especially apparel manufacturers, retailers and buyers, feared that with Brexit, Bangladesh would have to pay taxes for exporting goods to the UK.
Britain has announced once it leaves the EU it would continue to provide duty-free access to nearly 50 developing countries, including Bangladesh, Sierra Leone and Haiti, and that it has a commitment to help developing countries grow their economies and reduce poverty through trade.
The UK is the third largest single export destination for Bangladesh. From July to May of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh’s exports to the UK fell by 5.61 per cent. The UK currently imports around £20 billion a year from developing nations, including Bangladesh. In the 2015-16 fiscal year, Bangladesh earned $3.80 billion in exports to the UK, of which a lion’s share, about $3.52 billion, came from the readymade garment sector. However, there is still a lingering fear that grants or development funds from the UK will diminish as it will have to bear the expenses of executing the Brexit process.
Bangladesh would have to pay £24,79,76 thousand in tariffs to UK customs if it stopped enjoying trade benefits from the UK after the execution of Brexit.
The market for hard luxury product is segmented on the basis of mode of distribution channel used for offering products to consumers. Luxury goods comprises accessories, footwear, apparel, watches and other high end items and targeted at premium consumers. The market for luxury goods sees three types of consumers, which include kids between 0-12 years, teenagers 13 to 19 years and the rest in adult group. Luxury goods market can also be segmented on the basis of application which includes soft luxury and hard luxury. Soft luxury goods include designer apparels and leather goods such as hand bags and others, which are easily available in hypermarket stores or directly operative outlet. Where as hard luxury goods comprise jewellery and premium watches. The hard luxury goods are offered to consumers through premium outlets, or sold through internet.
Because of consumer convenience, preferences and availability of products at lower price online retailing is expected to be the most preferred mode of distribution in the forecasted period. Besides, the second most preferred mode is expected to be company’s brand retail outlets as they provide better offerings at less price.
Globally, demand for hard luxury goods is increasing and is expected to account for fastest CAGR growth as compared to other regions. Expanding middle class coupled with the need for premium class products are the key drivers of hard luxury goods in ASEAN region. Furthermore, wide varieties of product offerings in each segments and continuous innovation and product launch is expected to influence consumers in ASEAN region to fuel market growth of hard luxury goods in the forecasted period.
However, the market possess some restraining factors as consumers perceives these products as expensive and also it is considered as a premium class product and not an absolute necessity.
