FW
With textile print gaining ground, FESPA 2017 Mexico edition, to be held from September 21-23 in Mexico City, will offer a first-hand experience of latest products from top brands in the industry.
One such company to feature at the Mexican event is Kornit Digital. The Vulcan from Kornit Digital is targeted at screen printers that produce collections and short runs for retail use and promotional purposes. Lea Duckwitz, Regional Marketing Manager EMEA at Kornit Digital, describes the textile print sector as an ‘ever-evolving’ market and, from the point of view of both a manufacturer and print company, keeping track is a ‘non-stop job’.
The industry now needs the tools to enable companies to become online business enablers. That is how they will be able to meet increasing demand for short-run turnarounds and customize and personalie requirements, while at the same time remain versatile and sustainable. Kornit’s has identified two key trends in textile prints, mass customisation and professionalisation of workflow and job management solutions.
New launches in the offing
Launched at FESPA 2017, earlier this year, the Storm Duo is a direct-to-garment printing system that has 16 print heads in a double CMYK configuration, a productivity of over 200 prints per hour, and is well suited for producing light garments. Meanwhile, the heavy-duty Vulcan is targeted at screen printers producing collections and short runs for retailers and promotional purposes.
Another leading brand featured at FESPA Mexico this year is Epson, which, like Mutoh, has a number of textile print options on offer to the market. Heather Kendle, Market Development Manager, Epson Europe says they have seen increasing call for on-demand, customised and personalised fashion and interior decor. Digital processes can print on synthetic as well as natural fibres and they have seen huge strides in the range of polyester-based materials, many convincingly simulating the look and feel of natural products such as cotton, silk, satin or leather. Polyester-based materials are required for the dye sublimation process and can achieve really top quality results, even with complex design.
Some textile print solutions from Epson are: SC-F9200 and SC-F7200 64-inch models from the Epson SureColor SC-F series, suitable for low to medium production. Epson also offers the 44-inch SC-F6200, which it said is ideal for more flexible production environments.
Trendsetting equipment
Another major manufacturer with a strong presence in textile print sector is Mutoh. They will feature at FESPA Mexico this year. Nick Decock, Commercial Marketing Manager at Mutoh Belgium, there is a clear shift from centralised production and stocking of prints made with analogue equipment towards local and on-demand production of digitally printed textiles, specifically linked to the key benefits of digital inkjet technology. There is also a new trend towards direct printing on natural fibres like cotton using water based pigmented inks for applications such as home furnishings, upholstery and fast fashion. One of the advantages of water-based pigmented inks is that prints only need to be fixated after printing, making the manufacture process a lot shorter and easier.
Digital printing has now reached a good level of maturity with regards technology, quality and print speeds, which have are acceptable for traditional textile printers for their short run needs.
This year’s upcoming FESPA Mexico edition has much more in store. Being held at the Centro Citibanamex in Mexico City, the event will see visitors from across the Latin America region as they seek to learn more about latest solutions from various areas of the wider print industry. Visitors will have access to a series of informative seminars that are designed to offer valuable insight into key topics, while the event will also play host to the Mexican round of the FESPA World Wrap Masters.
China’s brand Urban Revivo will open a store in the UK in March 2018. Spread over 22,000 sq ft unit this will be the Chinese fast fashion retailer’s first store outside the country. It currently operates 160 shops, mainly in China.
Urban Revivo has also set its sights on expanding into the US, France, Japan and the Middle East in the next few years. Plans involve opening between 60 and 100 stores a year globally to reach a target of 400 stores by 2020. Urban Revivo specialises in affordably priced contemporary clothing and accessories for men and women aged 15 to 40 years, as well as children aged four to 14. Its lines include feminine chic, masculine tailoring, streetwear-inspired youth fashion and trend-driven accessories.
The brand, founded in 2006, introduces up to 12,000 new styles a year. But all its designs are available in only 12 pieces per store. It uses fabrics like 100 per cent polyester and non-sheer and stretchable. Urban Revivo opened its first international shop in Singapore earlier this year. It competes with the biggest international fast fashion brands and launches designs twice per week.
The brand belief is that fast fashion can enable ordinary people to sport the latest trends while getting value for money.
Industrial Fabrics Association International (IFAI) will be held in the US from September 26 to 29, 2017. IFAI represents the advanced, specialty and shade textile industries. Specialty fabrics feature traditional market suppliers from fabric and equipment to hardware and services needed to manufacture end products. Advanced textiles cover supply chain relationships in technical textile markets including medical, automotive, wearable, safety/protective, performance wear and aerospace. Shade and weather protection includes end products such as retractable awning systems, shade structures, canopies and other weather solutions.
Attendees looking for high tech or durable textiles, equipment, hardware, findings or services, will find it at IFAI Expo. The smart fabrics program will focus on e-textiles and their applications. The program comprises an e-textile workshop on the show floor with electronics and textile experts, easy to assemble e-textile kits available to all, an e-textiles standards roundtable and e-textile market discussions in an open forum setting.
The hackathon is a contest created to encourage innovative new e-textile products with commercial value. It’s open to all entrepreneurs, developers, designers, students, engineers, artists, makers and creators who will be assigned to teams and tasked with innovating using only materials found in the e-textiles workshop.
There will be discussions on topics from advanced textile development, e-textiles, environmental regulation compliance, fire protection to intellectual property law, and product and process development, among other topics.
Cotton farmers in the United States say they are in trouble and want a farm bill. They want the cost-share program going, beginning with the 2016 crop year. They say they are facing the steepest slide in net-farm income since the ‘Great Depression’. Countries like China pour money into subsidies for fiber production each year but America’s cotton producers do not have a safety net.
In the past decade, American cotton farmers have had to endure sharply increasing foreign subsidies, tariffs, and non-tariff trade barriers along with multiple years of significant weather-related crop losses. In recent years, these factors have resulted in the United States’ experiencing a 30-year low in cotton planted area; global cotton prices approaching two dollars per pound before plummeting to as low as 57 cents per pound; and record production costs far outpacing market returns for the last three years.
Over the past decade, the numbers of businesses involved in the ginning and warehousing of cotton have declined by 33 and 21 per cent respectively. The remaining 20,000 businesses in the cotton industry employ 1,26,000 people and generate over $21 billion in revenue. The textile industry was once the largest part of the US manufacturing sector.
Orissa and Telangana are luring textile units from Tirupur with lucrative packages. Tirupur’s textile business is worth Rs 50,000 crores, and employs over one million people. But dissatisfaction is growing among manufacturers with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). They feel the tax rate of 5 to 18 per cent on textile products under GST would hurt their ability to stay competitive in the global market.
They find they can recover their investments in Orissa or Telangana within four years. Orissa has rolled out the red carpet for Tamil Nadu’s textile industry with incentives such as a subsidy of Rs 15,00 per month per employee for three years for a unit with more than 200 workers and a 20 per cent subsidy on infrastructure cost. The state has also kept the minimum wage at Rs 200 per day for unskilled workers and Rs 260 for skilled workers, as against Rs 320 and Rs 600, respectively, in Tamil Nadu.
Telengana has promised a centralised effluent treatment plant for the industry and single-window clearance for proposals. For instance Best Corporation will invest around Rs 50 crores in Orissa to set up a 1,000 machine factory. The factory will create jobs for 2,500 people.
Hitesh Sanklecha, a textile trader who was fighting for the removal of GST on MMF fabrics, broke his 18-day-old hunger strike on Tuesday. Sanklecha, who was on a hunger strike on behalf of the 65,000 textile traders in the 165 markets here, broke his fast in the presence of his supporters at a public meeting near good luck market.
Among the huge presence of textile traders and workers at the public meeting, Sanklecha stated that since traders have bowed down before the government due to the weak leadership of the Textile GST Sangarsh Samiti (TGSS), he has no option but to end his hunger strike.
He further added that he has asked the TGSS to call a meeting of presidents and vice-presidents of all the 165 textile markets in the city to take their undisputed view on continuing the strike. At the STM meeting, there were representatives of a few markets and the FOSTTA declared that majority of people wanted the markets to reopen.
At the public meeting, the traders continued to shout slogans against Central government and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley. Hundreds of people hit the roads from Mahavir market and forced a few markets on their way to shut down after the public meeting was over. It was after the interference of the police, the crowds dispersed and a few protesters were arrested from the spot.
Indonesia’s textile exports in the first half of 2017 grew by 0.62 per cent year on year. This modest growth was supported by a 20.4 per cent year on year rise in knitwear exports. Indonesian textile exports to key markets have declined. Shipments to the US fell 3.6 per cent, to the European Union by four per cent and to Japan by nearly five per cent in the January-June 2017 period.
Since the start of the year Indonesia’s trade balance has improved markedly. Cheap imports have been discouraged. Imported products dominate 70 per cent of the domestic textile market. The aim is to make Indonesia competitive in the international market with other Asian major textile makers such as India, China, Vietnam and Bangladesh.
More than 50 garment factories have been relocated to Central Java where they have started using more efficient technology and therefore their output is more competitively priced on the world market, hence boosting demand. The textile and textile product sector contributed 8.2 per cent to Indonesia's total export earnings in 2016. Indonesia is one of the world’s largest textile manufacturers and exporters. The industry in Indonesia employs approximately 17 per cent of the country’s workforce and contributes significantly to the country’s economy.
By consistently adding new technology, Soyang Europe is assured of remaining at the forefront of the textile industry. A new display polyester has been added to the range along with a new black-back fabric and, with the ever-increasing popularity of large lightboxes for retail, the company has introduced a new backlit textile as well.
Its new display polyester is ideal for retail and exhibition graphics and is also printable with both dye sub and UV cure inks. A dense and compact structure enables users to achieve strikingly vibrant colors with dye sub or UV cure ink technology.
Meanwhile, the new black-back fabric is more suited to applications that require total block out. The range features for different finishes and offers solutions that can be used in lightweight woven or knitted structures up to 3.2m wide.
Soyang Europe’s new SoTex backlit has been launched in response to a spike in demand for oversized light boxes in retail stores, public spaces and exhibition halls. The range of grand-format backlit materials’ coating technologies and state-of-the-art yarns help deliver a premium finish.
The company, based in the UK, stocks options for UV, latex and dye sublimation ink technologies. Its products offer substantial benefits over alternatives. Soyang reports significant take-up by print service providers that run grand-format dye sublimation and UV hardware.
Retailers like H&M, Primark and several others are sourcing from Ethiopia. What attracts them is wage bills in Ethiopia are only a fifth of China’s and half of Vietnam’s. This makes the country one of the fastest growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa. Ethiopia is the second largest electricity producer in sub-Saharan Africa. The country’s power is among the cheapest in the world, is 86 per cent renewable and is on track to be 100 per cent renewable over time.
The country focuses on producing electricity from hydro, wind and geothermal sources. Ethiopia has launched a strategy to make the most of its potential in the textile sector.
The industry has advantages like power abundance and a growing human and material capital. It is witnessing rapid growth as a number of domestic and multinational firms are engaged in production of textiles, garments and apparel for domestic and global markets.
The country has Africa's largest industrial park. The flagship industrial park is capable of hosting gigantic multinational firms. It has a state-of-the-art waste treatment plant, the first of its kind in Africa. Ethiopia is also Africa’s second most populous country, with an average GDP growth rate of 11 per cent for the past 11 years and a stable government with an ambitious 2025 vision to become Africa’s leader in light manufacturing.
Although small-and-medium scale industry clusters have formed in the Mandalay region, local investors and businessmen are not interested in harnessing the business potential of these clusters, says U Myo Htut Swe, Director, Directorate of Industrial Supervision and Inspection.
Businessmen prefer to work individually. They do not like markets to be mixed as they trade only in the local market. There are clusters formed by firms in similar sectors. In the Mandalay Region, the Directorate of Industrial Supervision and Inspection formed industrial clusters since 2014 and there are now 111 groups in 15 industrial clusters.
The local business community needs to understand the advantages of tapping the potential of clusters. By doing so, the business community can discuss and share experience and find solutions to business problems to be more successful, says U Myo Htut Swe. The purpose of forming clusters is to encourage discussions and dialogues within the business community on issues such as how to penetrate the international market. Also, if there is a need to understand developments in the market such as advances in technology, the community can cooperate or invite experts to discuss topics. It should be like that, he added.
According to him authorities can help the business community foster the cluster mentality. That will empower local businesses and enable industries in Myanmar to compete internationally. The Directorate of Industrial Supervision and Inspection is now providing training to local businessmen with the help of foreign countries and helping to foster an interest in forming clusters among the local business community.
U Ye Win Aung, associate secretary of Mandalay Industrial Zone Management Committee, stated that while clusters can gradually be formed, distinctive changes will not quickly be seen.
