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The textile industry wants the proposed 18 per cent GST rate on manmade fibers and yarns to be reduced to at least 12 per cent. The industry says fixing the GST rate for manmade fiber at 12 per cent will encourage companies to diversify from the cotton-based textile segment.
While the GST for cotton fiber and yarn is five per cent, the same as now, the tax rates for manmade fiber and yarn have been fixed at 18 per cent. Although the current tax incidence for manmade fiber and yarn producers is roughly around the same level, it doesn’t bridge the existing duty differential with cotton fiber and yarn.
The industry says the excise duty on manmade fibers is preventing domestic synthetic fiber producers from scaling up operations. They say the huge duty difference has ensured that India’s textile market remains cotton-driven, in a stark contrast with the trend globally, and has eroded the country’s export competitiveness in the manmade fiber segment.
While manmade fibers account for around 60 to 70 per cent of the world’s total fiber consumption, they make up for just 30 to 40 per cent of Indian fiber demand (with cotton textiles contributing the rest).
While the GST rate for job work in textile yarn and fabric manufacturing segments has been announced, the tax rates for job work for garments and made-ups have yet to be declared.
The textile embroidery hub in Surat has decided to agitate against GST from June 24. Embroidery job work attracts a five per cent GST rate. Owners of units say profit margins range from 50 paise to Re1 per meter and if they are supposed to pay five per cent GST, their operations would be crippled.
Surat is the country’s largest textile embroidery hub. There are 1.5 lakh hi-tech embroidery machines installed in over 60,000 embroidery units spread across the city. The daily turnover of the embroidery sector is pegged at Rs 4 crores. The embroidery sector employs around four lakh workers, including one lakh women who work from their homes.
The revolution in the embroidery sector started way back in 2006 with the installation of 3,000 computerized embroidery machines known as multi-headed and Schiffli machines imported from China and South Korea. In the last decade, entrepreneurs have infused investments worth Rs 6,000 crores in the sector.
The number of machines has nearly doubled in the last five or six years, which has led to the steep fall in job work rates. Job work rates which were prevailing at Rs 2 per 1000 stitches around ten years ago have dipped to around 50 paise per 1000 stitches.
Many of the world’s leading garment sourcing hubs are ranked among the worst places in the world to work in. Bangladesh, the Philippines, Turkey and Egypt are ranked among the top ten worst countries in the world to work in. All are sizeable garment sourcing locations, Turkey is Europe's largest exporter of garments and Bangladesh is the second largest garment exporting country in the world.
In many countries, fundamental democratic rights are undermined by corporate interests. Attacks on union members have been documented in 59 countries. Bangladesh and Cambodia have seen an escalation of anti-union violence in recent years, despite talk of labor reform from these countries.
While the legislation may spell out certain rights workers have effectively no access to these rights and are therefore exposed to autocratic regimes and unfair labor practices. There has been a decline in labor standards over 12 months, with the number of countries experiencing physical violence and threats against workers having risen by ten per cent in just one year.
Denying workers protection under labor laws creates a hidden workforce, where countries and companies refuse to take responsibility, especially for migrant workers, domestic workers and those on short term contracts.
The International Trade Union Confederation has been collecting data on violations of workers’ rights to trade union membership and collective bargaining around the world for more than 30 years.
Vietnam’s textile and apparel sector has set a target of seven per cent growth over 2016. Currently, Vietnamese garment and textile products are available in 40 countries and territories around the world, with major markets including the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, China and the EU.
Vietnam is one of the five largest textile and garment exporters in the world. However the country is also one of the world’s leading importers of fabrics and materials. The shortage of high-quality materials for production is the biggest barrier to Vietnam’s textile and garment industry, hindering the country from taking advantage of free trade agreements.
Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City will build large centers for designing fashion, trading garments, textile material and accessories to become the country’s future garment, textile material and accessory hub.
Ho Chi Minh City has set targets of meeting 80 to 90 per cent of Vietnam's demand for garments and textiles by 2020 and supplying 100 per cent of accessories for the country’s garment industry.
According to approved plans, the city has 23 industrial parks and export processing zones, of which 17 are operational. Most garment and textile firms are now located in the export processing zones of Tan Thuan and Linh Trung, and the industrial parks of Tan Thoi Hiep, Tan Binh, Tan Tao, Tay Bac Cu Chi and Dong Nam.
The Children’s Place has entered into a development agreement with Gill Capital covering Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines. The first retail stores are to open in Indonesia, with a plan to open 25 locations in Indonesia, followed by openings in the other countries in the development area.
The Children’s Place is the largest pure-play children’s specialty apparel retailer in North America. It caters to children up to 14 years. It designs, contracts to manufacture, sells and licenses to sell fashionable, high-quality merchandise at value prices, primarily under the proprietary The Children’s Place, Place and Baby Place brand names. As of April 29, 2017, the company operated 1,033 stores in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, an online store and had 156 international points of distribution open and operated by its six franchise partners in 18 countries.
The store environment is pleasing and friendly, with bright, airy spaces that allow the merchandise to speak for itself. Total coordination and visual display make shopping easy. Clothes and accessories are conveniently arranged in separate departments: for boys, size 4 to 14; girls, 4 to 14; toddlers, 3 to 36 months, and newborns, 0 to 12 months.
Gill Capital has a proven track record of operating successful brands in south east Asia.
The UK Fashion and Textile Association (UKFT) has secured significantly increased export funding from the government for international trade shows. Grants will be available to help designers and manufacturers with the costs of exhibiting at fashion and textile trade shows around the globe. For 2018, additional shows include kidswear show Pitti Bimbo in Florence, CIFF, CIFF Kids, CIFF Raven and Revolver in Copenhagen, and menswear show Chicago Collective.
Not only does export funding via the program provide vital financial support to companies, it also provides a significant return on investment for government – every pound of support generates a return on investment of between 40 pounds and 70 pounds. With these additional shows UKFT will be able to offer Tradeshow Access Program support to an even wider range of excellent British brands and designers who are keen to get their collections in front of the right international buyers.
The UK Fashion and Textile Association is the most inclusive British network for fashion and textile companies. UKFT brings together designers, manufacturers, agents and retailers to promote their businesses and throughout the UK and internationally.
Membership of UKFT allows companies and associations access to an unrivalled community of contacts throughout the fashion and textile system.
In the world of luxury and high-street fashion, more western brands than ever are seeking to capitalize on a previously underserved market by learning about the needs and desires of muslim consumers, as reports suggest that global revenues from modest fashion bought by muslim women alone hit $44 billion in 2015.
The report revealed that muslim consumers spent $243 billion on clothing and footwear in 2015, accounting for 11 per cent of the global market. This figure is expected to reach $368 billion by 2021.The report also says that the U.A.E. to be leading the world in modest fashion, ranking the country as having the number one most developed ecosystem.
According to Alia Khan, Founder of the Islamic Fashion and Design western brands are certainly studying it better, learning about it, understanding it and doing their best to cater to it. Luxury brand DKNY (Donna Karan New York) introduced its first Ramadan collection exclusively for the Middle East In 2014, and in 2016 D&G once again used the holy month to showcase its luxury selection of Hijabs and Abayas. There is a strong Muslim consumer influence and it’s leading to better options for the Islamic audience, says Khan. And this is not just something that consumers buy for Ramadan, this is a full-time and lifetime commitment.
Islamic fashion has been rebranded as modest fashion is a recognition that its appeal transcends women of faith. In some circles, it is seen as revolutionary. Feminists think it will dismantle the patriarchy. Muslims think it will banish Islamophobia and doomsayers think it will be the end of western secularism. Certainly, modest fashion is a coming revolution – but one that will leave crucial parts of society intact.
For the first five months of 2017 Tunisia’s exports of the textile and clothing industries sector rose 11 per cent. The same applies to the leather and footwear industries, whose exports increased by 8.2 per cent. Similarly exports from the miscellaneous industries sector grew by 13.1 per cent.
Tunisia’s exports from the industrial sector grew 12.4 per cent compared to the first five months of 2016. Industrial sector imports for the first five months of 2017 were up 16.3 per cent. The increase in exports was mainly due to the mechanical and electrical industries, whose exports increased 20.3 per cent. Similarly exports from the agri-food sector grew by 5.5 per cent.
Industrial imports increased for all sectors. These increases range from 7.7 per cent for the leather and footwear industries to 63.2 per cent for the agri-food industry. The top export destinations of Tunisia are France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States. The top import origins are France, Italy, China, Algeria and Germany.
Top exports of Tunisia are insulated wire, pure olive oil, non-knit men’s suits, crude petroleum and non-knit women’s suits. Top imports are petroleum gas, refined petroleum, cars, wheat and low voltage protection equipment.
A large number of small garment factories those are out of the ongoing inspection network, makes a bad case for factory remediation - a process that has been in place for nearly four years. It has been learnt that these small production houses which are not directly linked with the European and North American retailers are left in the lurch as there is apparently no agency with required funds to conduct inspection. The number of such factories is reportedly around a thousand.
Following the Rana Plaza building collapse, garment factories all over the country were placed under the inspection network of three inspection initiatives -- Accord, Alliance and the National Initiative. These three initiatives have been inspecting nearly 4,000 factories to fix structural, fire and electrical loopholes in the factories. At present it appears that while bulk of the factories under scanner has been done with, but still there are around a thousand factories - small in size and rely mostly on subcontracting - which are yet to be inspected.
The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments (DIFE) is the designated agency to inspect these factories, but inspection of these factories is pending for want of funds. The DIFE has been strengthened lately with manpower, though inadequacy still persists. However, with its available resources, the state agency has been pursuing its job, but lately its activities got almost stalled due to fund constraints. A good number of the small factories, which are to be inspected by DIFE, have moved to either their own buildings or relocated their activities to rented buildings. Now, in the absence of inspection, they are not in a position to plan future activities. It was expected that the government would provide the DIFE necessary funds to complete the inspection, but this is not happening and it remains uncertain whether any prospective international body, ILO included, would be forthcoming to help undertake the pending works.
Despite the amazing task, the inspections -- first ever in the country - have laid out in details the fundamentals about managing factories -- from setting up to running, as functional productive units. At the same time, the inspections have brought home the perils of not doing what was required long back at the time of setting up of the units at whatever locations the owners thought suitable, with little or no clues as to the dos and don'ts.
At a time when garment export is the life-blood of the country's economy, facilitating its operation needs remediation and compliance of all small or big production houses. Although a majority of them are not directly linked with exporting, they are the ones which while surviving on sub-contracting, facilitate exports by the major exporting houses. Although they are the backyard of big export houses, absence of facilitation for them to fulfil the required compliance norms would harm exports on the one hand, and on the other, halt their growth into exporting units themselves.
Papua New Guinea sees potential to build and support the garment and textile industry in the country. The country will encourage local manufacturing in order to reduce the import of manufactured garments including second-hand clothing.
So it is working toward building its own clothing brands, cutting down on the bill of finished garments and increasing employment opportunities in the business and textile industry. There will be investment in the industry to boost and establish new technologies towards training.
The government is keen on diversifying the economy and would like to cut down the import bills on goods that the country can produce to meet its own local demand. These certain goods include rice, vegetables, dairy products and garments and clothing. While the cost of production in Papua New Guinea is high due to a number of factors, the necessary policy and incentives will create the right business climate for the country to produce its goods to meet its own growing demands.
Papua New Guinea has a fast-growing fashion design industry. A Papua New Guinea female entrepreneur is funding the building of a garment and textile factory in the country. The factory will target the tourism and hospitality industry with table cloths, linens, blouses, towels.
