FW
The 14th edition of the Dhaka International Textile and Garment Machinery (DTG) exhibition will be held from February 23 to 26. The fair, one of the largest trade fair of its kind in Bangladesh is likely to be attended by over 1,000 exhibitors from 33 countries including India.
Exhibitors will showcase a variety of equipment, products, technologies as well as services and information concerning all the textile and garment processing and production aspects such as spinning, weaving, and more. Jointly organised by Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA), Chan Chao International and Yorkers Trade & Marketing Service, the fair will include a Celebrity Hall for the first time this year. The hall, located on the ground floor of Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC), will be used to highlight high-end overseas apparel fabrics and accessories brands.
Inspired by prosperous economic outlook and competitive labour force of Bangladesh, many international brands will come to attend the fair to develop a solid presence and tap better business opportunities in the country. Among them are world’s leading brands covering comprehensive textile & garment supply chains, such as Mayer & Cie, Pai Lung, Santoni, Shima Seiki.
DTG is renowned for its high turnout of international exhibitors and trade visitors. It is widely seen as a must-visit, leading textile and garment machinery fair in Bangladesh. Bangladesh enjoys duty-free exports to the EU under the most privileged ‘Everything but Arms (EBA)’ trade scheme, and gains a lot of support from its global trade partners. Among them, Germany, now the single largest export outlet for Bangladesh-made garments next to the US, has promised to help the country’s garment industry double its export volume. With these robust advantages, the Asian country is emerging as a new garment manufacturing hub in Asia.
The four-day-long 16th edition of Garmentech Bangladesh-2017 ended successfully. The Fair that concluded last Saturday showcased latest apparel technology besides interactions among renowned technology leaders from all over the world at the International Convention City in Dhaka.
The second day of the exposition on January 19 marked the beginning of a seminar organised by Textile Today which addressed the opportunities and challenges before the garment manufacturers in the nation's quest for global leadership in readymade garment (RMG) exports. At present, Bangladesh is the world's second largest RMG manufacturer and exporter after China. In the last fiscal, the nation exported garment worth $28 million. However, the aim of the Bangladesh Garment Industry is to reach $50 million worth export by 2021, the year the country marks its 50 years of independence.
Anas Shakil Country Head (Bangladesh), ThreadSol conducted a talk on unit cost economics as the key for garment export growth in Bangladesh. He emphasised to ensure meeting the target of $50 billion by 2021, Bangladesh will need to be more competitive in terms of cost. Cost per garment determines the profitability of the garment business. And this cost per garment will have to be lowered or maintained.
As per past trends, the main reason for Bangladesh's dominancy over other South and Southeast Asian markets has been low labour costs. However, with recent developments on strengthening of labour unions and demand for higher wages, this advantage is on the verge of being dented. In this case, technology like ThreadSol will play an extremely important role in overcoming the excessive manual intervention and fabric wastage the industry witnesses today. ThreadSol solutions, intelloCut and intelloBuy ensure that the garment manufacturer buys the right amount of fabric and the fabric wastage is brought down to under 1 per cent.
"WTiN, in association with the TPF2017 (Shanghai International Digital Printing Industry Fair), the leading international trade fair for digital textile printing in Shanghai – will organise ‘WTiN China Digital Textile Conference (CDTC)’. TPF 2017 will be held from April, 19 to 21, 2017 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC). The focus will be on latest industry trends, Chinese and international print technology developments, inks and other consumables."
WTiN, in association with the TPF2017 (Shanghai International Digital Printing Industry Fair), the leading international trade fair for digital textile printing in Shanghai – will organise ‘WTiN China Digital Textile Conference (CDTC)’. TPF 2017 will be held from April, 19 to 21, 2017 at the Shanghai New International Expo Center (SNIEC). The focus will be on latest industry trends, Chinese and international print technology developments, inks and other consumables. It will also include insights into the unique creative business opportunities provided by digital textile printing technology, and into the supply chain advantages of digital printing over traditional analogue methods. The speakers line up has more than 18 experts and leaders of textile digital printing industry. Nearly 250 industry elites will gather to witness the development of digital printing industry.
Digital printing in China
China is the world’s biggest producer of digitally printed textiles. Year 2015 saw a strong increase in installed base of digital printing capacity in China, as well as in the number of domestically manufactured textile machines. By the end of the year, almost 6,000 dedicated digital textile printers were recorded to be operating in the country, with a capacity to produce over 191 million sq. mt. of digitally printed fabric annually. In addition, there could be as many as 2,000 more adapted roll-to-roll or flatbed machines being used in textile and garment printing applications. All these activities add up to substantial demand for both ink and transfer paper in the Chinese marketplace. WTiN estimates, the growth rate of digital textile printing production in China could be up to 150 per cent from 2014-2019. Digital textile printing's market share will be 7.2 per cent in 2019, with market expectations to reach 2,000 sq. mt. of total yield, and 100 per cent equipment replacement. WTiN estimates digital textile market growth at 30 per cent in 2016
Focus on new business opportunities
The conference will attract leading digital printing machinery companies, ink suppliers, digital printing consumables and design software. As the most influential conference in digital textile industry, CDTC will be a platform for suppliers and users to discuss the opportunities and challenges of this rapid-growing industry.
Incidentally, this is the second time WTiN and TPF have collaborated. In 2016, speakers from Reggiani, SPG Print, Kornit, Sensient and Digitex shared their views on the opportunities and challenges brought about by rapid development of digital printing. Next year, more information and ideas will spread at CTDC 2017.
Buyer mission and business matching
International buyer missions from all over the world will converge at TPF 2017, invited by UBM overseas branches and overseas media partners of TPF. It will give exhibitors an opportunity to gain more insights about overseas demand and expand their business. Visitors from Italy, Spain, England, India, Korea and other countries join in as a part of buyer missions.
Workshops an added attraction
To provide more opportunities for exhibitors to promote their high quality products and new technologies, TPF 2017 will organise several product and technical presentations. Workshops on different topics will be held, giving all an opportunity to gain knowledge about digital printing and its development, as well as market insights and design trends. They will focus on the hot topics of digital printing, such as applications of digital printing, ink technology, print head technology, design software and printing design trends. Industry specialists will share their knowledge to help companies stay competitive.
Sourcing at Magic to be held in the US, February 20 to 23, will host an Africa Pavilion on the show floor with countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Lesotho, Ghana, Cameroon and Uganda participating. The show will highlight the bustling African region with multiple factories and seminars. It will look at how the Trump administration may impact various free trade agreements and international trade relationships.
Experts will analyze the cause and effect between supply chain and recent challenges in the global economy, such as the elimination of TPP, continued rise of costs in China and trade issues between the US and China. Over the past couple years, serious interest in African countries as a major sourcing destination for apparel has grown.
With the recent renewal of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) through 2025, which allows certain countries in sub-Saharan Africa duty-free access to the US market, the buzz around Africa has become even louder. Major companies including PVH, VF Corp, H&M, Primark and Tesco began sourcing a portion of their garments from this region a few years ago and it quickly made its way to the forefront as a region of opportunity for many apparel brands. Africa offers a great solution for cost sensitive orders and the ability to create high quality products that are not time sensitive.
American textile manufacturer West Point Home has opened a new spinning facility in Bahrain. This will increase the company’s spinning capacity in Bahrain by 38 per cent. The $9 million investment marks West Point Home’s third expansion in Bahrain over the past five years. For West Point Home, investing and expanding in Bahrain has been an ongoing activity. The company has invested some $160 million over the last 10 years in this part of the world and the products produced here generate over 50 per cent of its total global revenues annually.
The tariff preference level allowed West Point and other textile manufacturers in Bahrain to import certain support materials, such as yarn, and export finished goods into the US duty free.
But in 2016 this facility expired. So West Point undertook work on the spinning plant to offset costs resulting from the end of the facility. By spinning more yarn in Bahrain, the company hopes to decrease lead times and increase flexibility. It will also effectively allow it to build on what is already over 100 million dollars of exports annually from Bahrain to the US as well as expand its ability to further sales in other regional and international markets like the GCC and European markets.
With industrialization, surging consumption of textiles in engineered products and rising awareness about the benefits of using textile chemicals, the market in India is projected to cross $2.5 billion by 2021. Apart from this, rising disposable income and increasing living standards are expected to significantly augment demand for textile chemicals in India in the next five years.
With the upcoming GST bill, the positive impacts of GST on overall economic growth in the next few years this would make the manufacturing sector more competitive. As far as textile sector, being an essential item for the common man, textile items should be kept under GST with the minimum possible tax slab and special rates.
Demonetization and cashless transactions are the PM’s initiatives and Union Textile Minister, Smriti Irani, has encouraged digital payments in textile industry. Digital India Workshops have been coming up as an initiative to empower workers to make cashless money transactions using electronic devices and channels. These workshops are first of its kind organised in Indian textile industry.
The textile ministry is promoting cashless payment within the industry by encouraging textile workers, artisans and weavers to open bank accounts following the demonetization of high currency notes. The government has urged textile units to go cashless on a priority basis by opening accounts and using unified payments interface (UPI). The ministry of textiles also set up over 900 camps across the country to open bank accounts. Textile Commissioner Kavita Gupta says the ministry aims to bring all textiles workers within the banking fold and enable them to use digital payment transfer apps in the next three months. Although demonetization has affected cash flow in the textile industry it is likely to drive a constraint in demand for the entire textile value-chain.
World Patent Marketing introduces the Yarn Slider, a craft invention that makes the knitting process faster and easier. Many people enjoy knitting but it can be a difficult task sometimes. This craft invention will help old people knit easily. It helps them have more control of the yarn. The Yarn Slider is a small tube that the user can run yarn through the top of one of the interchangeable tips. The user can then control the tension of the yarn by using their thumb on the small opening. This is both more comfortable to hold than the usual method and also gives them more control over the yarn. This makes knitting faster and easier in addition to allowing people who have less control be able to knit effectively.
World Patent Marketing is a vertically integrated manufacturer and engineer of patented products. The company provides invention services and is one of the only invention companies that engineers and manufactures its own products.
The Yarn Slider allows users to more accurately control the tension on the yarn being used. This allows them to knit more easily and quickly with less hassle. It is the perfect tool for someone wanting to create on a knitting loom who has trouble wrapping the yarn by hand.
Making use of a concept called click chemistry to synthesize antibiotic spider silk, Professor Neil Thomas of the School of Chemistry of the United Kingdom-based Nottingham University collaborated with life scientist Sara Goodacre and her team in the research. Recombinant silk fibers functionalized with levofloxacin was able to retain its antibacterial activity by slow release for up to five days after functionalisation. Professor Thomas points out, the biocompatible fibers can find applications in tissue engineering and biomedicine. The structure serves as scaffolds for cell growth and provides antimicrobial properties due to the presence of antibacterial agents by slow release mechanism.
A chance meeting of chemists and scientists from SpiderLab resulted in antibiotic recombinant silk fibers, using the click reaction technique. The work involved the synthesis of silk protein in a bacterium, where an amino acid not found in protein was added. This amino acid has an azide group, which helps with the click reaction resulting in the functionalized artificial silk. The research was funded by the United Kingdom’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and has appeared in a recent issue of the online journal Advanced Materials.
Vietnam may emerge as a major importer of Indian cotton. In 2016-17, Vietnam imported five million bales of cotton compared to 4.5 million bales a year before. Now it wants Indian cotton to meet the rising demand of its garment and textile sectors. Vietnam’s domestic production of cotton meets only one per cent of demand. The country needs over 5,00,000 tons of cotton to satisfy the needs of its garment and textile manufacturers.
Vietnam’s apparel industry is growing rapidly. With an export growth of 20 per cent a year, the sector is expected to generate a turnover of $40 billion by 2020. There has been a large inflow of foreign investments in the country’s textile industry, which has led to an increased demand for cotton. Mainly exporting to Bangladesh, Pakistan and China, India is the world’s top producer of cotton.
After three highly successful and action-packed days at the Postbahnhof venue, the Greenshowroom and the Ethical Fashion Show Berlin ended. Both shows saw substantially more visitor numbers and a variety of enthralling innovations.
Both of the green trade fairs won over audiences with high quality of collections displayed within a newly expanded space. The high visitor numbers seen on all three days of the events prove the great diversity of what the Messe Frankfurt is offering is of genuine appeal. Particularly from mainstream retailers, the organiser is registering even higher levels of interest, said Olaf Schmidt, Vice President Textiles & Textile Technologies at Messe Frankfurt.
With 179 international labels, the pair of trade fairs has once again earned their place both as the main platform for ecologically and fairly produced fashion during Berlin Fashion Week and as a unique hotspot within Europe for sustainable fashion. At Greenshowroom, a total of 40 international contemporary labels were on display. There, designers wowed audiences with their skilful mixing of styles, as glamour was excitingly combined with sporting chic. For the coming autumn/winter season, more colourful and contrasting looks are on trend. These include broad silhouettes combined with tailored fits and dusky tones set against showy colours.
Retailers have confirmed increasing demand for eco-fashion. The trend is continuing – more and more mainstream retailers are visiting Berlin as they plan to give a platform to eco-fashion. There was also an appreciable rise in the number of international visitors to the shows.
