Novetex, a Honk Kong-based textile spinning mill is harnessing pioneering recycling technology to make the fashion industry more sustainable. Novetex uses new technology to separate fabric blends in waste garments and produce yarn. The mill will carry out mechanical recycling, where soiled or damaged fabrics - such as old uniforms or hotel curtains - are sanitised, with buttons and zippers removed, then sorted and stored.

Once an order comes in for a certain color, the material is UV-sterilised before being cut into pieces and spun into yarn. No water or dye is needed, and only small amounts of virgin material are used. The mill will also test a system to separate cotton and polyester blends using only heat, water and small quantities of biodegradable chemicals.

Hong Kong wants to encourage its 7.3 million people to move away from a take-make-dispose model towards a more circular economy where waste is reused. The city wants to be a leader in sustainable fashion.

Clothing companies around the world doubled the amount of garments they made from 2000 to 2014. Over the same period, the number of garments bought each year, per person, jumped 60 per cent. That has led to a stream of clothing purchased and thrown away, tossed as waste and going into landfills.

Texfusion and The London Print Design Fair, to be held from October 31-November 1, 2018 will feature over 230 exhibitors. The number of exhibitors, boosted by new partnerships with The Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF), Tengda Exhibition (China & Hong Kong) and the Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (India), has doubled since last season.

The Print Design area at the exhibition will host 50 print studios, with British studios making 80 per cent of exhibitors. Exhibitors from France, Italy, Switzerland and the US will also increase. On the other side of the hall, Texfusion will showcase around 180 exhibitors across fashion fabrics, accessories, garments, technical fabrics and denim. Tengda Exhibition is bringing 40 Chinese and Hong Kong-based exhibitors, while the Taiwan Textile Federation will be presenting 10 companies specialising in technical fabrics, sustainability and denim.

The Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council from India will host an Indian Pavilion with 40 manufacturers and products such as fashion fabrics, accessories and garments.

American denim brand Wrangler will release a line of denim made using a new eco-friendly foam-dyeing process in 2019. The technique, developed at Texas Tech University, eliminates 99 percent of the water typically used in indigo-dyeing. Wrangler, along with the Walmart Foundation and fellow denim brand Lee, invested in the development of the new dyeing process at Texas Tech in 2017. With the new technique, raw denim is dyed with foam instead of water. The brand has been able to reduce water use in product finishing during the past 10 years.

Spanish fabric mill Tejidos Royo will be the first to apply the foam-dye process, which it calls Dry Indigo. The mill is set to receive the dyeing equipment in October and begin supplying Wrangler with finished denim before the end of the year. Wrangler has previously reinforced its image as an environmentally-conscious brand by funding ongoing work in US sustainable cotton, and publicly committing to reducing water usage in its denim production by five billion liters by 2020.

Hanoi Tex is on at Vietnam from September 19 to 21. This show is about textile products made of micro-fiber fabrics, yarn, silk, bamboo fiber, non-woven fabrics and cotton. It also features modern equipment, machinery, automatic technologies and other auxiliary materials.

The show is a good opportunity for domestic businesses in the textile and garment sector to learn and equip themselves with advanced equipment and modern technology as well as expanding cooperation. Vietnam’s exports of textile and garment rose 10 per cent in 2017 compared to 2016. In the first eight months of this year, export figures were up 15 per cent over the same period last year. Major markets, including Japan, Korea and China, accounted for 75 per cent of Vietnam's export value and increased more than 20 per cent over the same period.

This year continues to be a challenging for Vietnam’s domestic textile and garment industry as the sector needs to move forward in its global textile supply chain by adding greater value. In addition, the fourth Industrial Revolution has also had a major impact on the textile industry, forcing businesses to adapt and invest more strongly in equipment, as well as personnel. The forecast for Vietnam’s garment exports in the remaining months is positive.

As per the Central Java Indonesian Enterprenuers Association (Apindo), although the export value of Central Java's textile and textile goods have decreased since July 2018, the industry is growing again. From January to July 2018, there was a slowdown in the textile and garment industries. However, since last month, orders have again begun to increase. In the next two to three months, the realisation of exports of textiles and textile goods from Central Java will increase significantly.

Data released by the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) reveal both exports and imports of textiles and textile goods in Central Java decreased from $220.86 million in July 2018 to $172.53 million in August 2018. Similar to imports, exports also decreased from $288.95 million to $266.37 million.

The total import value of Central Java in August 2018 reached $1.55 billion, up 18.71 per cent compared to July 2018 when it was $1.3 billion.

Synthetic fabric and textiles in India are likely to become costlier as the raw materials used in their production, petrochemicals like DMT, PTA, have become more expensive. The steep depreciation in the rupee against the dollar is set to make imports of raw materials costlier, leaving no room for synthetic textiles manufacturers but to raise their product prices.

The synthetic textile industry already works on wafer thin margins. But given the forecast that crude oil price will remain firm, synthetic fiber and yarn prices may also remain firm. An improvement in cotton price to polyester staple fiber price spread is likely to result in volume growth of synthetic textiles and support the profitability of the synthetic value chain.

Pink bollworm attack is set to affect India’s cotton crop area by ten to 20 per cent. Demand from China is set to increase in favor of India following a heavy import duty levied on cotton imports from China and as cotton output in Pakistan is expected to decline by a fourth, fiber prices are likely to remain elevated.

The benchmark Brent crude oil prices have jumped by a staggering 12.9 per cent in the previous one month. Also, the rupee has depreciated by 4.1 per cent in the last one month.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, which is in the process of reshaping economic policies, has reduced regulatory duty on raw material imports, especially for the five zero-rated sectors. This reduction in duty on 82 items would save Rs 5 billion for the textile industry in remaining months of the current fiscal year 2018-19.

This is in addition to the Rs 44-billion benefit the industry, especially those located in Punjab, is being provided through gas subsidy to make the utility price uniform across all four provinces in the country.

As per Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), the industry earned $13.53 billion in export proceeds in the previous fiscal year ended June 2018 that came to around 58 per cent of total exports of $23.22 billion in the year. In the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year, the industry fetched $2.26 billion in exports or 62 per cent of the total export proceeds of $3.66 billion.

A prominent Cambodian unionist has threatened to protest on a large-scale if the newly formed government ignores a European Union resolution that threatens to end Cambodia’s tariff-free access to EU markets. Rong Chhun, President of the Cambodian Confederation of Unions (CCU) and a former National Election Committee member has urged the government to take action to prevent Cambodia’s suspension from the Everything But Arms preferential trade scheme.

The EU is Cambodia's largest export market, with garment exports to the EU alone amounting to about $700 million annually. The government has claimed that it would find other markets to export Cambodian products to if it is excluded from the EBA scheme. But no other markets come close to meeting the demand, with the position of the second-largest export market, the US, also in question. Together, exports to the EU and US make up the vast majority of all Cambodian textiles exports.

Adriano Goldschmied, known as the godfather of denim, will launch his limited edition of Godfather of Denim knit tee, made in LA with Tencel Lyocell branded fibers. Proceeds from the tee shirt sale will be donated to Greenpeace, an NGO supporting the protection and conservation of the environment, as well as promoting peace. The brand will launch ‘THE G’ which are beautiful 100 per cent Tencel ™ Lyocell T-shirts made in a superfine yarn.

Goldschmied is working on many different projects from design to textiles and almost all are focused on sustainability. The brand recently eedesigned the method of work, have more efficiency and speed and introduce the digital work at all the levels in order to have control, more creativity and make better products. Be closer to the consumer and integrate the new demand in the new products and communicate back immediately.

Lenzing has developed a new technology platform. The web technology is a nonwoven web formation process that starts with botanic wood pulp and produces a nonwoven fabric made of 100 per cent continuous Lyocell filament.

This web can be integrated with standard non-thermal based nonwoven bonding technologies, such as hydroentangling and needle punching. The technology enables a unique self-bonding mechanism where filaments bond into a fabric during the laydown process. This self-bonding mechanism enables a product range with a much wider variety of surface textures, drapeability and dimensional stability than other nonwoven technologies utilizing 100 per cent cellulosic fibers.

The flexibility of the technology and the possible integration with other nonwoven and textile technologies will enable the development of a broad range of composite structures for highly engineered end use applications. Consumers have become more aware of the negative impact of plastics in waterways and marine ecosystems. The new Lenzing web technology will enable the value chain to create more innovative applications out of natural, biodegradable cellulose materials.

The web technology is a perfect example of Lenzing’s testament for strategic growth and its commitment to developing new breakthrough innovations by providing more sustainable products to consumers. The nonwoven segment currently represents 30 per cent of Lenzing’s core business.