FW
A Rs 108 crores integrated textile park is coming up in Vidarbha at Hinganghat in Wardha district. This is expected to generate at least 1,000 jobs and provide the much needed fillip to the cotton economy of the region.
Cotton is the main cash crop of Vidarbha. But the cotton belt is under distress due to the uncertainty over prices and the inability to process raw cotton up to the textile and garment stages to spur demand. For some reason textile units did not come up in the region, and the cotton produced here was transported to far off south India or western Maharashtra, while farmers growing it always got a raw deal.
Hinganghat Integrated Textile Park has an authorised share capital of Rs 180,000,000 with a paid up capital of Rs 59,500,000.
The plan is to set up 11 units in the integrated park spread over 32.63 acres. Of them one each will be for ginning, twisting/doubling, knitting, processing, fiber-yarn dyeing, garmenting, technical textiles and two each for spinning and weaving.
About 40 per cent funding (with a cap of Rs 40 crores) is provided by the Center and the state government’s share is nine per cent or Rs 9 crores maximum.
Home textile player GHCL will launch its own brand next fiscal. This will be a private retail brand for home decor and lifestyle products. It will be targeted at the domestic market and is likely to be pitched against other home textile brands like Bombay Dyeing and Welspun.
GHCL already has a tie-up with Perry Ellis International for the brand Laundry by Shellie Segal for bedding products which include flat sheets, sheet sets, duvet covers and coordinating shams for customers in the US and Canada.
The total turnover of GHCL for 2014-15 was around Rs 2,400 crores, which it anticipates to grow to around Rs 2,500 crores in 2015-16. Of the total turnover, the textile segment contributes around 40 per cent. The textile division is a vertically integrated manufacturing facility with spinning, wide width weaving, continuous fabric processing and cut and sew facilities for manufacturing premium quality bed linen.
The spinning unit is located near Madurai in Tamil Nadu while its home textile manufacturing is located near Vapi in Gujarat. In time GHCL wants to gradually build its own brands in the domestic market, thereby creating a niche place for its products.
ghcl.co.in/
The Zamfara Textile industry has urged the federal government in Nigeria to ban import of foreign fabrics to revive the nation’s ailing textile mills. Sani Muhammad, the Administrative Secretary of the mill, made the call while fielding questions from the News Agency of Nigeria in Gusau. He cited the import of textile materials as the reason for the collapse of nation’s textile sector.
Muhammad lamented that Zamfara Textile Industry, established in 1965, had laid off over 2, 500 workers in 2004. It is unfortunate that the industry is not able to come back fully. He therefore, urged the government to provide improved cotton seeds and modern textile machines for Nigerian fabrics to favourably compete with foreign ones.
Meanwhile, the chairman, Ginners Association of Nigeria, Sani Dahiru, blamed poor cotton production on the neglect of the agricultural sector and collapse of the textile industries. Dahiru observed that out of the 15 ginneries operating in the state, only two offered skeletal services.
He urged the government to provide trained agricultural extension workers to assist cotton famers meet the needs of the surviving mills.
Textile Exchange (TE) and Organic Trade Association (OTA) will work together to strengthen the organic textile industry in the US. A major goal of this new partnership will be to boost outreach to North American consumers on the benefits of organic fibers and textiles, particularly the environmental and social benefits of growing and processing them.
OTA and TE will work together on legislative advocacy initiatives, advance organic fiber market messaging to consumers, promote awareness and education on standards and certification, develop and participate in media efforts to facilitate awareness and knowledge related to organic fibers, and develop and participate in various industry initiatives such as workshops, seminars and webinars.
American companies recently have reported significant growth in their organic cotton programs, and are increasingly adopting standards addressing fiber and product traceability. Many manufacturers have also become certified to the Global Organic Textile Standard, a fully traceable global standard from farm through processing (spinning, knitting, dyeing and manufacturing) of apparel and home textiles made with organic fiber.
Global sales of organic cotton products were up 10 per cent in 2014 compared to 2013. The leading organic fiber is cotton. US organic fiber sales were the fastest growing non-food sector in 2014, rising 18 per cent from the previous year. In 2014, US growers planted organic cotton on 18,234 acres, the largest number of US acres devoted to organic cotton since 1995.
textileexchange.org/ https://www.ota.com/
The Rajasthan government has signed an investment proposal for 23 textile projects amounting to a little over Rs 7,000 cores. As of now, 18 of them have got off the ground, said a top official in the industry department. The textile industry that was pilloried for inflicting large-scale damage to environment appears to have emerged as the dark horse to become the top sector for clinching the highest conversion rate of investment proposals into projects.
As most investors have land already in their possession, they have started construction of the units. In fact, companies like Nitin Spinners, RSWM, and Sudiva Spinners have actually started production, said L C Jain, additional director, industries. The states textiles sector, which provides direct and indirect jobs to nearly 7 lakh people and contributes 17 per cent to its exports, has been accorded priority status. It is one of the very few sectors to enjoy interest subsidy of 5-7 per cent given by the state government.
Other sweeteners like VAT exemption of 50 per cent on purchase of raw material and 50 per cent exemption of entry tax on capital goods are extended to the investors.
Rajasthan is today counted as one of the leading states for cotton production with an annual output of about 20 lakh bales. Similarly, 85 per cent of the wool produced in the country is from Rajasthan.
The US-based Meridian Specialty Yarn Group (MSYG), a leading specialty yarn manufacturer and producer of package dyed and space dyed yarn, is planning major expansion of their current manufacturing operations in Valdese, North Carolina. Meridian anticipates spending $8 million on the expansion.
Expansions will commence this winter on a new 113,000 SF manufacturing plant, which will be located at the company’s current manufacturing site in Valdese, North Carolina. Completion of the project, which includes renovations to the company’s existing 152,000 SF plant, is expected by early winter, 2017, and will greatly expand Meridian’s current capabilities.
A small section of the existing plant will be removed and the final manufacturing operation will span 260,000 square feet of production and warehouse space. Over the past eight years, as other US companies in the same sector have closed operations or moved overseas, MSYG has continued operations in North Carolina and has emerged a global leader. MSYG manufactures and dyes yarn for many industries including home furnishings and upholstery, hosiery, apparel, narrow fabrics, carpets and rugs, sewing thread, craft and industrial textiles.
MSYG’s wet processing plant in Valdese, Meridian offers the widest range of yarn dyeing products in the industry, including package dyed yarn, three processes of space dyed yarn, top dyed wool, yarn printing and twisting. Currently, products made by MSYG are found in retail and craft stores across the country, and also in carpets, furniture, window treatments, automobiles, tires, socks and more.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), the apex apparel body in Bangladesh has sought an alternative customs channel as an emergency byway alongside the global Asycuda world system that repeated failed them in cargo shipment. Interruption in the system earlier had held back export and import trade through the seaports, they pointed out. BGMEA has proposed that the National Board of Revenue (NBR) arrange alternative servers in Dhaka and Chittagong customs houses to conduct uninterrupted external trade in readymade garments.
The BGMEA's proposal came after the country's export-import business faced a blow on January 18-22 due to technical glitch in the Asycuda world system. According to the officials the problem now has been resolved but reason behind the technical glitch was yet to be fixed by both local and foreign experts. Experts of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) are now working to find out the fault line, they said.
The UNCTAD provided customs-data software and technical support to the revenue board in upgrading the Asycuda++ to Asycuda World.
Spanish company Jeanologia wants to double its size in three years. The company plans to invest €10 million in R & D to develop new sustainable technologies that transform the textile sector. Jeanologia specializes in laser technology for the textile industry. It’s estimated that 20 per cent of the 6,000 million pieces of jeans produced a year in the world use Jeanologia technology. This technology produces the same finishes on the garment as do traditional techniques like sandblasting, sanding, sprays or stonewashes, but with a considerably reduced or even zero use of water and chemicals and with no detrimental effect on workers’ well-being and health.
Jeanologia wants to raise this percentage to 50 per cent and introduce this technology in all areas of textile production. The company was founded in 1993. It closed 2015 with a turnover of €32 million, after a sustained growth of 20 per cent annually over the past five years. Nearly 90 per cent of the sales come from outside the company, which has customers in 50 countries on five continents, including Mexico, United States, Germany, India, China, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Vietnam.
The main customers are textile producers hired by large European and American brands that manufacture in countries with cheaper labor like India, China and Pakistan.
eim.jeanologia.com/
In a bid to promote Indian products in a big way, the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCFH) has submitted final proposal to the Ministry of Textiles for setting up two large handicraft warehouses in Latin America and Russia. EPCFH is waiting for a positive response soon from Ministry of Textiles.
, Rakesh Kumar, Executive Director of EPCFH says they have proposed two handicraft warehouses: one in Uruguay in Latin America and Latvia in Russia. These will promote their products as these markets are potential in terms of business. Each warehouse will be built with an investment of Rs 100 crores. The idea is to help exporters who are currently facing several transport, credit and other related difficulties in the process of export and full circle transaction which normally stretches to a span of six months.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Textiles had built an export cluster with an investment of Rs 17 crores in AP to facilitate lace handicraft workers and exporters scale up to the growing demand for the products across the world.
The government is aiming at Rs 20,500 crores handicrafts exports for the current fiscal, over Rs. 2,000 crores more than the last fiscal. The government focused on southern region. For lace and crochet here, the target is pegged at Rs 500 crores exports in the coming five years. The current export is Rs 60 crores.
The International Labour Organisation has urged Bangladesh to complete the remediation process in the garment sector as soon as possible to save the sector from any future catastrophe. It may be remembered that remediation is only part one, a lot of factories are investing and fixing their safety issues on their own, said Srinivas Reddy, Country Director of the UN agency at a roundtable at The Daily Star Centre in Dhaka.
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and The Daily Star jointly organised a seminar on the garment exporters’ target to reach $50 billion in exports by 2021.Reddy said respect for labour rights, continuous social dialogue and investment in people are crucial for sustainability of the country’s garment sector.
The ILO official requested factory owners to hear workers’ viewpoints on a regular basis and have a culture of cooperation. Workers have to be made a partner in progress. International standards should be followed in all issues, whether it is freedom of association or collective bargaining, he added.
According to Mohan Seneviratne, a Program Manager at International Finance Corporation, garment makers and retailers should also focus on environmental sustainability in Bangladesh as the level of water in Dhaka has been depleting by 2.5 meters every year for higher consumption by the industries. As of December 2015, 102 BGMEA member factories have adopted modern technologies under a program called ‘Partnership for Cleaner Textiles’ focused on the wet dyeing and finishing sector, sponsored by the Dutch government, 10 brands, IFC, BGMEA and Solidaridad. These factories have saved 14 billion liters of water in a year, according to Seneviratne.
