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It began with cotton cultivation, over the years the Turkish textile segment has become an export industry. The export of Turkish yarn and fibre products has increased in recent years following huge investments made in the industry. Turkey is among the most important producers of cotton as well as yarn manufacturing and processing countries in the world. The yarn industry continues to increase its value of exports with value-added products such as customised, high-performance products and eco-friendly yarns.
Given this background, the 15th International Istanbul Yarn Fair is set to open its doors from April 14-17, 2018 at the Tüyap Fair Convention and Congress Centre where it will bring the yarn and fibre industries together. Participants who wish to export their goods to Europe and worldwide will get a chance to showcase their innovations and establish new partnerships as well as strengthen the image of their brand.
Visitors will have the opportunity to view cotton yarn, combed cotton yarn, polyester yarn, acrylic yarns, woollen yarn, fibres and many other kinds of yarn from different parts of the world as well as meet suppliers. To be held with the participation of the world’s leading manufacturers of textile machinery, ITM 2018 - International Textile Machinery Exhibition will take place on the same dates as the International Istanbul Yarn Fair between.
Zimbabwe’s clothing industry is being weighed down by an influx of cheap imports and shrinking markets. The industry employs just 7000 people.
A budget proposal to increase duty on cotton fabrics to 30 per cent is seen as a wrong move. The fear is that this would lead to an increase in the cost of production of a garment by about 50 per cent to 60 per cent rendering the local manufacturer as totally uncompetitive.
Textile companies in Zimbabwe don’t have the foreign currency for importing raw materials.
The country is facing a serious shortage of foreign currency. US dollars are being sold in the black market at exorbitant rates.
Textile production has been greatly affected. Units can’t access the foreign currency needed for importing vital raw materials such as yarn, dyes and chemicals.
The apparel sector in Zimbabwe currently operates at less than 30 per cent of its capacity. Zimbabwe is flooded with cheap textile and apparel imports from Asian countries, especially from China. These low-priced textile and apparel imports have had a negative impact on the manufacturing sector in Zimbabwe. Textile and apparel manufacturers want a ban on imports of cheap polyester knitted fabric and finished blankets.
Swedish clothing giant Hennes & Mauritz has said that their sales dropped below expectations in Q4 and correspondingly it would close more stores as customers preferences have moved towards shopping online. H&M CEO Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement that the company’s “online sales and sales of the group’s other brands continued to develop well” but that brick-and-mortar stores “were negatively affected by a continued challenging market situation with reduced footfall to stores due to the on-going shift in the industry.” Sales between September and November fell by four per cent as against the same period last year to 50.4 billion kronor (5.0 billion euros, $5.9 billion).
In local currency, sales dropped by two per cent. ”The numbers are really, really bad,” Joakim Bornold, an economist at the investment bank Nordnet, was reported to have said, “I can’t remember when H&M had a quarter in which the sales fell,” he added. In order to respond even quicker to customers’ fast-changing behaviour, the company’s on-going transformation journey is being accelerated,” Persson said. This includes continued integration of the physical and digital stores and intensifying the optimisation of the H&M brand’s store portfolio — leading to more store closure and fewer openings.
The textile chemical market in Europe is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 4.20 per cent between 2014 and 2020. Growing demand for hometech, mobiltech and clothtech chemicals will propel the market. The European textile chemical market is categorized into finishing agents, coating and sizing chemicals, colorants and auxiliaries, surfactants, bleaching agents, desizing agents, and yarn lubricants. Coating and sizing chemicals are the largest segment. However, the finishing agents segment is expected to display the fastest growth owing to the growing demand for high-quality fabrics.
On the basis of application, the market is segmented into indutech, sportech, mobiltech, buildtech, hometech, meditech, clothtech, protech, agrotech, packtech, and others including geotech and oekotech. Mobiltech accounts for a 25 per cent market share. The growth of the segment can be attributed to its extensive demand from industries such as railways, automotives, spacecraft, ships, and aircraft. Agrotech is expected to be the most rapidly developing application segment by 2020 owing to the extensive use of agrotech chemicals in horticulture, forestry, landscape gardening, floriculture, and agriculture. A rapid increase in the number of organic farms in Europe will further fuel the demand for agrotech chemicals.
However, growing environmental concerns will restrain the overall market. Some textile chemicals are also known to be carcinogenic. This has led to the emergence of bio-based alternatives that will hinder the growth of the market.
The digital printing market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.48 per cent between 2017 and 2023. Growing demand for sustainable printing, development of packaging and textile industries worldwide, and reduction in per unit cost of printing with digital printers are expected to drive the growth of the digital printing market worldwide.
The ink market for digital printing is expected to hold the largest share of the digital printing market between 2017 and 2023. The overall digital printing market includes the digital printer market, ink market for digital printing, and print head market. The ink market for digital printing has the largest share of the overall market owing to its extensive benefits in digital printing, since they are waterproof and UV-resistant, and do not have any significant environmental impact.
UV-cured ink is expected to hold the largest share between 2017 and 2023. UV-cured ink for digital printing is the fastest-growing segment, which offers various advantages such as quick drying, environment-friendly, low price, and resistance to UV rays, which are very important for printing on plastics, textiles, and others. As a result, UV-cured ink is increasingly replacing solvent ink despite being more expensive. North America held the largest share of the digital printing market in 2016.
The industry will be coming together from September 20 to 23, 2018 at the Clothing Machinery Fair to be held at Tüyap Fair Convention and Congress Center. The show will attract manufactures of state-of-the-art, efficient and sophisticated machinery from Turkey and worldwide. The fair will permit clothing manufacturers that implement new technologies and care about design development to compare machinery alternatives and guide new investment decisions.
Participating companies will be able to expand their international network and display their brand value to the world. Organised to provide clothing manufacturers a platform, this fair will give visitors the opportunity to see cutting-edge sewing machines that drive the imagination with their compact, easy-to-use features. An integral part of fashion in recent years, embroidery machines used in embroidery work, especially for home textiles, underwear and outerwear, will be showcased. Designers who wish to create high-quality embroidery quickly and easily will have the chance to closely examine machinery that incorporates latest technology.
Businesses that like to minimize downtime through speed and automation will find the opportunity to compare computerised ironing machines that can multitask and deliver all requirement of the clothing industry; specially tricot ironing machines, clothing ironing machines and steam generators will be available under the same roof. An entire selection of computer-aided pattern making software used in the ready-made clothing industry will be brought together. These machines provide savings in printmaking and materials and will help companies in the industry to increase their competitiveness.
Well known for its application oriented textile and engineering education and close ties with the textile industry, DKTE Society’s Textile and Engineering Institute, Ichalkaranji has won prestigious ‘Best Industry-Linked Technical Institute-2017 Award’ in the nation-wide survey jointly conducted by All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) and the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII). This is the second time that DKTE won this coveted award. The objective of the survey was to assess and reward the institutes with good industry interaction.
Around 9,525 colleges across the country had shown interest in the survey. The entire process was online where institutes were asked to fill in all the data of their curriculum, faculty, infrastructure, placements, governance and research and services for the year 2015-16 and 2016-17. Post generating objective scores for the full survey, screening and shortlisting was done by an eminent jury comprising experts from industry and academia. DKTE emerged as the winner in Chemical and Allied Engineering Institute category in this survey
The jury was impressed by the commendable progress made by the institute in the area of training, placements and MOUs with industries. They were also impressed by the 100 per cent placement record, training in industries of textile graduates for the last 35 years. The research and publications of faculty and students, state of the art equipment worth 50 crores, intensive interaction with industries and alumni, MOUs with national and international industries and universities, seminars, workshops and training programmes organised and 100% placement of students for the last 35 years impressed the jury members. This was mentioned in the survey report published by AICTE-CII.
The faculty members are deeply engaged in carrying out research sponsored by industry as well as in-house research. As a result of this, as many as 650 research papers have been published / presented by the faculty members in reputed national and international journals as well as in important national and international conferences.
The Pakistan Ready - made Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA) has asked for a relaxation of duties on import of yarn to encourage value addition, reduce the cost of doing business and bridge the gap between production and consumption. Its demand arises post the government’s decision to withdraw sales tax and customs duty on the import of cotton to help spinning mills.
The association has requested the textile division to submit a summary to the Economic Coordination Com¬mit¬¬tee of the cabinet for duty relaxation on the import of yarn. PRGMEA’s chief coordinator, Ijaz Khokhar said, “The government will have to provide a level playing field to the whole textile chain instead of supporting only yarn manufacturers which have around 350 units against the value-added sector comprising 10,000 units across the country.”
Khokhar said the government is going to facilitate cotton imports despite the fact that around 1.86 million bales of cotton are lying unsold in the country. Thus, it must remove restrictions on yarn imports too, he added. Since the apparel sector has already a very limited production line owing to a lack of latest fabric varieties at the local level, harsh duties are resulting in a significant decline in apparel exports. The apparel industry is already suffering from low productivity due to a shortage of cotton yarn, high energy cost and discriminating import duties on the its raw material. He is of the view high-quality cotton yarn has to be imported for the production of value-added products.
The 22nd AEPC Export Awards 2016-17 were held in Delhi recently. The awards recognises top achievers from the apparel industry across a wide range of KPI’s and rewards the best performers in 18 categories. Extending across diverse product categories and including both experienced and start up representation; the awards are a celebration of the contributions exporters have made to the industry and the national economy.
This year, AEPC Awards included two new categories viz: sustainability and good practices. Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Commerce and Industry said, “The commerce ministry is working on an end to end comprehensive strategy where we are looking to provide Industry new markets through bilateral and multilateral dialogue. To support exports, a plan is underway for creating an umbrella organisation which can address the issues faced by exporters. We are currently working on reducing the time to markets by removing logistics bottlenecks.”
Amitabh Kant, CEO, Niti Aaayog opine, “Niti Aayog accords a great importance to the textile and apparel sector because the industry plays a vital role in delivering economic development. The sector is one of the most promising sectors. In the proposed India–EU FTA, India may compromise for wine and push for textiles. The import tariff on man-made fibre has been a strategically wrong policy. India needs a fibre neutral GST rates and zero tolerance between payment and refund of taxes.” Union Minister of Textiles and Information & Broadcasting Smriti Irani said they are soon going to come out with policy for jute and silk. “Our ministry is also working on a policy for the development of skills of the employees engaged in the sector. The Ministry is also looking at ways to value add Indian brands and designs.”
In his speech chairman AEPC Ashok Rajani said spoke about the contribution of apparel industry to the economy. He said, “AEPC Export Awards are the most prestigious awards in the Indian apparel Industry which amply demonstrates the excellence of Indian apparel industry. The Indian textile industry has inherent linkage with agriculture and with the culture and traditions of the country. The Industry contributes 10 per cent of manufacturing production, 2 per cent of India's GDP and up to 13 per cent of the country's export earnings. With over 45 million employed directly, it is one of the largest sources of employment generation in the country.”
"The organisers of leading student sustainability event, the Youth Fashion Summit, recently partnered with the United Nations Global Compact in the form of a two-year student program, which sets out to challenge the 100 most talented students in the fashion industry to create a framework for the industry on how to reach two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely SDG 3 and SDG 5."
The organisers of leading student sustainability event, the Youth Fashion Summit, recently partnered with the United Nations Global Compact in the form of a two-year student program, which sets out to challenge the 100 most talented students in the fashion industry to create a framework for the industry on how to reach two of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely SDG 3 and SDG 5.
The two-year sustainability program put together by the UN Global Compact in collaboration with the Global Fashion Agenda and Copenhagen School of Design and Technology will challenge students to specifically dive into SDG 3, ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages, and SDG 5, achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. The extracurricular program is organised around webinars providing the students with different approaches, tools, as well as practical examples, and all participants will receive reading lists and preliminary assignments.
Lise Kingo, CEO & Executive Director, UN Global Compact, explains, “I am very excited to see what comes out of the student challenge for SDG 3 and SDG 5. The potential of the fashion industry as trendsetters, employers and through their sourcing and manufacturing processes, is tremendous when it comes to promoting health and well-being and empowering women and girls. I really hope the students will challenge us to think in new and bold ways of how fashion can contribute to these interconnected themes.”
Having a global voice
The students’ work will culminate at the Youth Fashion Summit, where they will work for days to write several future scenarios and demands based on the SDGs. Their demands will then be presented for key decision-makers at the world’s leading business event on sustainability in fashion, Copenhagen Fashion Summit, on May 16, 2018. In 2019, the same 100 students will be invited back to transform their demands into corporate action in collaboration with international fashion companies and thereby align the companies' sustainability goals with broader societal aims. Eva Kruse, CEO, Global Fashion Agenda, organiser of the Youth Fashion Summit as well as Copenhagen Fashion Summit, said, “The perspectives, the opinions and the many brilliant ideas we hear from the students who participate in the Youth Fashion Summit are very valuable and highly appreciated. I'm therefore very excited to see the results of the hard work they will dedicate to the two-year program regarding the two SDGs.”
