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Yiwu Tex will be held in China from November 30 to December 3, 2015. This textile machinery exhibition helps textile enterprises realise transformation and enhance competitiveness. Yiwu Tex is a specialised show which focuses on the knitting and hosiery industry. It targets advancement, energy-saving and automation technology, providing a one-stop platform running through the knitting and garment industry.
The show will present new textile technology applications in knitting and garments, medical hosiery, seamless underwear, functional sportswear, interior auto parts, footwear, home textile and many other sectors. The knitting industry occupies an important position in China’s textile industry.
A series of events and forums will be held during the show to analse the latest design trends. It is a combination of theory with visual display. Buyers can experience the latest topics of fashion. There will be forums on latest trends in lingerie and knitted apparel, functional sportswear and waste water treatment.
Yiwu Tex 2014 covered an exhibiting area of 15,200 sq. mt., featuring more than 200 leading international exhibitors from 10 different countries and regions. It accommodated over 530 sets of machineries and equipment, which attracted 9,130 important buyers from 29 countries and regions and more than 10 professional associations and enterprise delegations.
www.yiwutex.com/
Myanmar has for the first time set a minimum wage for garment factory workers. The eight-hour daily minimum wage will be applied to businesses with more than 15 workers in all regions and states. It’s based on a five-day work at eight hours per day, and Saturday work at four hours per day.
This represents an approximate doubling of the average base pay for new workers. Myanmar pays double for overtime and overtime kicks in at 44 hours per week rather than at 48 hours, as in most neighboring countries. Hence a higher base pay has a larger add-on effect when factories operate on an overtime basis.
Myanmar currently has the second lowest garment sector wages in South and Southeast Asia, with Bangladesh the lowest. The changes mean that while Myanmar will still have more cost-competitive labor rates than Cambodia and Vietnam, it will be higher than Bangladesh.
One of the biggest challenges has been to set a wage that ensures Myanmar remains competitive as a sourcing destination, but reduces the likelihood of strikes by ensuring workers have enough to live on. The country has set a target of earnings $2 billion from garment exports by 2016 from its 275 large, garment exporting factories.
The show is being held from July 1 to 3, 2015. This is a fiber trade show presenting the latest yarns from the knitting industry. Pitti Filati attracts international buyers and designers from the biggest names in fashion. The Filati research lab helps designers understand the trends of the future. The lab theme for Fall/Winter ’16 is ‘Make It’. It hones on the concept of skills and crafts. It’s taken from the idea of looking at objects that have survived through the ages; ordinary, everyday things where craftsmanship stems from human need.
For a period of 13 weeks, international buyers can browse the collections of 1,336 brands – men’s wear, women’s wear, kids’ wear, and yarns – and view 8,000 products online through high definition videos and pictures. It signifies a shift in manufacturing preferences. Italian yarns are resurfacing for their luxurious properties. High end American and European labels are re-tapping Italian mills for lustrous cashmeres, wool and readymade knitwear.
Italy’s fashion and textile sector is said to be on the rebound after a two-year downturn, with total revenue rising only 2.7 per cent in 2014. However, with a recovery in the American market and the strong US dollar, domestic sales are expected to gain 3.8 per cent in 2015.
www.pittimmagine.com/
Myanmar has for the first time set a minimum wage for garment factory workers. The eight-hour daily minimum wage will be applied to businesses with more than 15 workers in all regions and states. It’s based on a five-day work at eight hours per day, and Saturday work at four hours per day.
This represents an approximate doubling of the average base pay for new workers. Myanmar pays double for overtime and overtime kicks in at 44 hours per week rather than at 48 hours, as in most neighboring countries. Hence a higher base pay has a larger add-on effect when factories operate on an overtime basis.
Myanmar currently has the second lowest garment sector wages in South and Southeast Asia, with Bangladesh the lowest. The changes mean that while Myanmar will still have more cost-competitive labor rates than Cambodia and Vietnam, it will be higher than Bangladesh.
One of the biggest challenges has been to set a wage that ensures Myanmar remains competitive as a sourcing destination, but reduces the likelihood of strikes by ensuring workers have enough to live on. The country has set a target of earnings $2 billion from garment exports by 2016 from its 275 large, garment exporting factories.
Yarn manufacturers in Indonesia want temporary safeguard duty on imported yarn products. Yarn manufacturers are keen to protect the country’s domestic industry whose products, particularly polyester, have struggled to compete with cheaper imported yarns due to higher production costs.
Foreign yarn producers have essentially dumped their products on the Indonesian market, selling them at lower prices, in an effort to compensate for weak global demand. There is a rising demand for textile and garment products in Indonesia. But most of the garments use large amounts of imported yarn. Indonesia’s 2014 total consumption of polyester was 6,20,000 tons, 1,35,000 of which was imported. Imports have greatly increased over previous years.
It is hoped that the measures called for will induce downstream textile companies to use local yarn products. Competition in the polyester sector has been particularly fierce and Indonesia’s local manufacturers have found themselves on the losing end of recent battles.
Indonesia is not the only country in Southeast Asia to find itself in a conundrum vis-à-vis yarn and the products made out of it. As a part of the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, the US is currently pushing Vietnam to drastically reduce imports of textiles from China (which is not a part of the TPP). It is the intention of the United States to push Vietnam to begin importing more fabric from the US, thus growing its own fabric industry and creating more jobs.
China is keen to join TPP but for that the country will need nod from the US and also have to negotiate separately with each of the 12 countries that are part of TPP, to obtain membership. The countries will have the right to set conditions for China and China will have to pay to join the TPP. But it is still unclear what price China will have to pay.
The TPP agreement is expected to control 40 per cent of the world’s trade and will directly confront China. It is obvious that the TPP upholds the 12 countries’ interests and protects them from being blocked by China. Vietnamese textile and garment enterprises have been using Chinese materials to make finished products. However, when Vietnam joins the TPP, it would rather buy input materials from TPP member countries to be able to enjoy TPP’s preferential tariffs. If so, China will lose an important customer.
On the other hand China has been preparing well for this. It has relocated factories to Vietnam to make Vietnam-sourced products which can enjoy preferential tariffs. Besides the TPP, the US has announced the launch of talks on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the 28-nation European Union, with the first round of negotiations due early July.
Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals has entered into an agreement to sell its textile business to Sutlej Textiles and Industries for Rs 232.63 crores. The unit Birla Textile Mills (BTM) located at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh will be sold on a 'slump sale' basis subject to requisite approvals, the company said in a BSE filing.
"The company has executed business purchase agreement on June 30, 2015 for sale of BTM to Sutlej as a going concern on slump sale basis," the filing said. The sale transaction, which has already been approved by the Competition Commission of India (CCI), would be subject to requisite approvals and fulfillment of various other conditions as mentioned in the agreement, it said. In March, Chambal Fertilisers had said that the textile unit would be sold for Rs 232.63 crores.
Kolkata-based Chambal Fertilisers, predominantly a producer of farm inputs, also has shipping division. It has other business interests through its subsidiary in the software sector.
www.chambalfertilisers.in
The event will look at prospects for raw materials, fibers and textiles in the context of sustainability challenges, global health issues, and lifestyle and demographic changes. The conference will review the raw material chains for polyester, polyamide, cotton and viscose. After such a rapid decline in oil prices, the event will look at recovery possibilities, assessing whether excessive investment in polyester and polyamide intermediates continues to prejudice margins.
Presentations will address fiber demand numbers and will also look at the crucial issue of how to recover value, one of the most pressing requirements throughout the industry. Other presentations will look at factors influencing fiber choices by textile and garment companies, the important dynamics in key applications such as nonwovens and automotive products, and the definition of sustainability at various levels of the chain, and the role of recycling and bio-based products in providing sensible solutions.
Global fiber and textile supply chains have endured difficult and unpredictable years in which raw material prices have soared and crashed. Heavy investment in China and volatility in exchange rates have reconfigured supply chains, and trade patterns and over-capacity at all levels have become a major threat to the financial stability of large parts of the industry.
Italy's textile machinery production dropped marginally, by one per cent in 2014, compared to 2013. After falling the two previous years, exports in 2014 touched the same value as in 2013, with exports destined to Asia and Europe making up for 81 per cent of overseas shipments.
However, as exports to European markets grew in 2014 compared to previous year, they actually fell in Asia. Exports to China, which is one of the main export markets of Italian machinery, fell by 25 per cent in 2014 as against the previous year, a result of less than expected robust economic growth.
On the other hand, exports to India, Bangladesh and Vietnam were on the rise, and Italian textile machinery manufacturers also did well in Turkey, the US and Iran. During the current year, industry stands to benefit from macro economic factors that are making forecasts lean towards cautious optimism. Within Italy, the textile machinery industry is one of its most important sectors. Its textile technologies are considered of a very high qualitative level.
ITMA, to be held in November 2015, the industry’s most important trade fair, provides an opportunity to showcase Italian technology and stimulate new investments from the textile sector in Italy and Europe.
Mexico has revised standards for labeling of textile and apparel products. All apparel, apparel accessories, textile products and home textiles with over 50 per cent textile content must comply with the official Mexican standard for mandatory labeling requirements.
In order to allow manufacturers, importers and marketers adjust their production processes to comply with new requirements, authorities will accept products that are legal before the effective date. The new standard provides generic names and definitions for the most important natural fibers in accordance with the fiber constitution or specific origin. The major change is that generic names must be written without capital letters.
The words lana (wool), and/or pelo (hair), can be now added before the generic name of some animal fibers. Lana may be added before alpaca, angora, cashmere, camel, guanaco, llama, mohair, vicuna, yak, beaver and otter. Pelo may be added before cow, deer, goat, horse, rabbit, hare, nutria, seal, muskrat, reindeer, mink, marten, sable, weasel, bear, ermine and arctic fox.
For apparels and apparel accessories, one or more permanent and legible labels must be attached at the collar, waist or any other visible location with the below labeling information in Spanish or in any other language.
