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The Taipei Innovative Textile Application Show (TITAS) is being held in Taiwan, October 17 to 19, 2016. Representatives of about 100 international brands from 21 countries are attending. The United States accounts for one-quarter of the foreign brands. More than 1,000 one-on-one meetings between Taiwanese vendors and potential foreign buyers have been arranged to promote trade growth. The show has a focus on environmentally friendly and functional products. About 400 exhibitors from Taiwan and abroad are displaying their products in 800 booths. Sweden’s Polygiene, Germany’s Emtec Electronic, Switzerland’s Archroma Management, Japan’s Toyobo and South Kroea’s Ducksan are among the foreign exhibitors at the trade show.
China, Hong Kong and India have also sent delegations to the exhibition. Functional fabrics are being showcased at this year’s show, reflecting efforts by Taiwanese textile vendors to work closely with the high-tech sector to introduce smart clothing that takes health care, home living, exercise and personal protection into consideration.
Taiwan’s textile sector is determined to support the global trend toward eco-friendly practices by exhibiting green products. The supply chain of Taiwan’s textile sector has developed fabrics using recycled materials. Major overseas buyers in the global textile industry are particularly keen to purchase products that are not harming the environment, creating good opportunities for Taiwanese textile exporters.
Spinning mills in Madhya Pradesh have significantly reduced buying raw cotton from the market. They are holding back purchases anticipating a drop in prices of raw cotton with the arrival of fresh and superior crops in the market from November. There are about 40 spinning units in the state. Each unit has a capacity of one lakh spindles that require around 450 to 500 bales of cotton a day.
The moisture content in current supplies is over 30 per cent as against the standard level of 15 per cent. Fresh supplies of cotton have started arriving in the local market but only 10 per cent of the crop has been harvested so far. Cotton arrivals are expected to increase from November. Arrivals of the new season crop have got delayed due to rains in several parts of the region.
Current cotton prices are not viable for spinning mills as yarn prices are ruling low in the market due to poor export and textile demand. Mills are in a wait-and-watch mode as cotton prices may drop with the rise in supply. Spinning units have been using blended cotton since the past few months due to higher cotton prices.
Following a presentation on the clothing and textile sector in Morocco at the Apparel Sourcing last month, a partnership agreement has been signed by Messe Frankfurt France and the Moroccan Association for the Textile and Clothing Industries (AMITH).
The presentation entitled ‘The clothing and textile sector in Morocco: performance, strategies, outlook’ provided an overview of the domestic industry and its potential for future growth, aimed at production managers attending the leading trade fair for sourcing finished products in clothing and fashion accessories. The eighth largest supplier of clothing and textiles to the European Union in 2015 with exports worth EUR 2.54 thousand million, 2.3 billion of which comes from clothing, the clothing and textile industry of Morocco is said to be a key sector for socio-economic equilibrium.
Despite sluggish European economic climate, the Moroccan clothing and textiles industry is not merely holding its ground but has been back on track for growth for the last three years. In the first half of this year, Morocco’s exports to Europe jumped by 8 per cent. The country owes these excellent results to other European producers (Turkey, Tunisia) that has helped the country to rally the sector, setting clear and ambitious strategic objectives with the support of government bodies.
China is losing market share in global textiles mainly due to higher costs of production and shortage of a skilled workforce. The minimum wage of textile workers in China is growing 10 per cent every year that makes it rather expensive for production compared to some South Asian competitors. With average wage of the 23 million textile workers in China reaching $600 a month, garment factory owners are starting to face great pressure.
As an alternative some Chinese textile manufacturers have started moving to Africa and Southeast Asian countries. They feel they can benefit in terms of costs and market access. Apart from sub Saharan Africa, North Africa is seen as another important destination. In North Africa there is already a developed textile industry, e.g. in Egypt and Morocco.
Of the important textile manufacturing nations, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Vietnam and Indonesia have costs which are significantly lower than those in China. The Chinese are also planning to relocate a number of their industries, particularly garments and textiles, to Bangladesh by setting up factories in a special economic zone. China itself could play a major role in making Bangladesh the number one readymade garment exporter in the world.
However, Bangladesh needs to be smooth in project implementation and remove roadblocks and mistrust that exist with China.
H&M Foundation, the non-profit-making organization, announced the second edition of the Global Change Award on September 1. The open competition has been instituted for encouraging research to shift the fashion industry from linear to a circular one. The foundation, personally funded by the Stefan Persson family, has allocated €1 million grant to five innovations that can re-invent the fashion industry. The last date of submitting application for the award is October 31.
Clothing made of citrus by-products, microbes that digest waste polyester and an online marketplace for textile leftovers are some of the five disruptive ideas that shared the first €1 million Global Change Award grant last year. The first edition of the Global Change Award had received more than 2,700 applications from 112 countries.
Karl-Johan Persson, board member of the H&M Foundation and CEO of H&M said that after having a look at so many fantastic innovations from around the world that had the potential to transform the fashion industry, his company decided to announce the next round of the Global Change Award. Making the fashion industry circular is not just about recycling. To encourage ideas from a broader scope Global Change Award 2016 has three categories open for applications: Circular business models covering ideas on how to reuse, repair, share, digitalize or extend the life of products.
Circular materials looking for ideas on new fibres, recycling techniques, leather substitutes etc. and Circular processes aiming to find new methods around chemicals, water and dyeing, as well as 3D printing, demand-driven manufacturing etc. Annually, an expert panel selects five winners that share a grant of €1 million and gets access to a one-year innovation accelerator provided by the H&M Foundation, Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Global public is then invited to distribute the €1 million grant between the five innovations through an online vote. The result of the vote garnered would be announced at a grand award ceremony in Stockholm in April 2017.
Hit by a rise in cross border tension, the textile industries in both Pakistan and India are in serious dilemma as cotton trade between the two countries has been in animated suspension as no new deals are being thrashed. However, one can see a bit of silver lining with Pakistan’s Cotton Commissioner Khalid Abdullah revealing that a low quantum of trade activity is still taking place.
The government has not asked importers to stop buying cotton from India but many of them are not buying on their own as a gesture of national solidarity. However, Indian exporters are refusing to sell the commodity at their government’s behest, although they know that they would be losers.
Pakistani spinners are the biggest buyers of Indian fibre. Imports of a lesser quantity by Pakistan this year could hurt Indian exports, raise their prices and help rival cotton exporters like Brazil, the United States and some African countries. And for the industry in Pakistan, buying the raw material from other sources may prove costly owing to long distance freight. In fact, the situation is in a wait-and see mode. Cotton trade between the two countries is worth $822m a year.
Suspension in cotton trade comes at a time when Pakistan’s cotton crop has recorded an overall decrease of 15 per cent over that of last year. This has added to the industry’s woes. Though Pakistan begins importing from September, but this time there has been little activity so far.
In fiscal year 2015-16, official trade between India and Pakistan was recorded at $2.6 billion with cotton being a major component. However, in the crop year that ended on September 30, Pakistan was India’s biggest cotton buyer after its own crop was hit by drought and whitefly pest. According to an estimate, Pakistan will need to import at least three million bales in 2016-17. On Oct 7, the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) estimated the output for 2016-17 stood at 11.039 million bales. Lower output was mainly due to effects of climate change on the crop, besides pests like pink bollworm and whitefly.
To help plug a growing deficit in supply, China may match its 2016 sales from state cotton reserves next year, it is gathered. Plans by the world's top textile market to sell off the huge reserves of cotton is being closely watched by the global market, with China holding more than half of the world's inventories after a years-long stockpiling programme.
Amid a surge in financial pressure and a change in policy, the country is now attempting to sell off those stocks. This summer, it sold about 2.5 million tons by way of auctions. This move has extended the sales by an additional month on higher demand from mills.
Zhang Jinguang of the economy and trade division at the National Development and Reform Commission urged the cotton reserves authority to carry out sufficient preparations to make sure that it was ready to release at least one million tonnes by March. China's recent round of reserve auctions led the United States Department of Agriculture to cut its estimate for global stocks earlier this week and raise its figure for Chinese consumption, suggesting that mill demand in China had been previously underestimated.
The move pushed ICE cotton futures to a one-week high. Analysts said, however, that import restrictions would limit benefit to exporters.
BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) hope to double the size of intra-grouping trade to $500 billion within five years. This requires businesses and industry in all five countries to scale up their engagement. For one they have agreed on a tax and custom cooperation framework. In 2015, intra-BRICS trade stood at about $250 billion.
There is huge scope for intra-BRICS cooperation in infrastructure development and financing. The formation of a group of angel investors is one possibility. In the past year, BRICS has played an active role in shaping the global agenda for change and development. It has had purposeful and productive associations with Agenda 2030, the Paris Climate Agreement, and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development. And it remains at the forefront of pushing change in global governance architectures.
In a world of new security challenges and continuing economic uncertainties, BRICS stands as a beacon of peace and promise. With the expansion of BRICS agenda, there is a need to enhance business cooperation in agriculture by way of sharing of best practices among members.
The Shanghai-headquartered NDB, which has completed one year of operations, had approved loans to the tune of $911 million for development of renewable energy sector in member countries.
In the last eight years, the cotton-based Indian textile industry has been facing acute crisis because of high volatility in cotton prices especially during the off season that starts from May to September. Though the cotton year is October to September, more than 80 per cent of cotton arrive in market between November and March.
Due to financial constraints and three months credit limit facility extended by banks, spinning mills are forced to procure cotton at high for at least five months. The stagnated growth in cotton textile industry and exports is caused mainly due to volatility in cotton prices. Since 2007, the industry has been pleading with the Central fovernment to announce cotton fibre security policy after removal of cotton from Essential Commodities Act and by extending a low cost working capital fund and ensure adequate stock to use ratio of cotton to have a level playing field in the globalised environment. However, so far no decision has been taken.
Against this background, a 19-member delegation led by Vanathi Srinivasan, State General Secretary, BJP, Tamil Nadu and M Senthilkumar, Chairman, The Southern India Mills’ Association (SIMA) met the Union textile minister, Smriti Irani and submitted a joint memorandum. The chairman, SIMA has stated that based on the collective decision taken by 26 textile Associations across the value chain in the country, it was unanimously decided to insist the government to direct the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to procure 70 to 80 lakh bales of cotton during the peak season when the Indian cotton price rules lower than the international price, retain cotton as buffer stock and sell this quantity only to actual users between May to September.
A digital textile printing conference will be held in the US, December 6 to 7, 2016. The program will feature the industry’s most well-known and respected experts presenting topics essential for those involved in digital textiles. The two-day event will deliver unprecedented content to conference registrants who will leave with a wealth of understanding and inspiration to take back to their respective jobs. Technology, color management, product performance, testing, design, and more are included in the jam-packed event.
The first day includes a manufacturer’s panel, color management for digital textiles, finishing, meeting your customer’s sustainability objectives, product testing for quality assurance, and research findings from North Carolina State University College of Textiles.
The second day includes designing for digital printing of textiles, fabric factors impacting digital printing, digital print inspiration and design, web-to-print, digital manufacturing, and more. Most commercially available fabric is rotary screen printed; each print run is typically several thousand yards. The high minimums are due to the cost and time required to prepare a unique set of screens, with each color in a design requiring a separate screen.
The main advantage of digital printing is the ability to do small runs of each design because there are no screens to prepare.
