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A delegation from the American Chamber of Commerce, consisting of members from the apparel and footwear sectors, visited Cambodia to discuss trade union laws. The delegation feels that there should be a rational way to decide within a factory who the real spokespersons are and that there should be a fixed process governed by law for dealing with labor disputes and if the process were violated people should be held accountable.
The visitors were of the opinion that proper implementation of laws would help reinforce confidence and predictability in the garment sector and maintain Cambodia’s brand image as a manufacturing destination. Cambodia was rocked by labor strikes in 2013 and 2014.
The delegation represented buyers from brands such as Walmart, New Balance and the clothing business PVH. They also discussed ways of moving the garment sector up the value chain as well as minimum wage deliberation process. The felt that there was expectation disconnect with wages always wanting to go up but not productivity.
Cambodia’s garment sector accounts for 80 per cent of the country’s total export revenues. However, working conditions and wages remain a source of dispute and unrest. Other pressures are the global economic crisis and increased competition.
Bangladesh is hosting a textile and garment machinery show from January 28 to 31, 2016. More than 1,000 textile equipment manufacturers, spinners, weavers and knitters, from 34 countries, including Bangladesh, will display a variety of state-of-the-art textile and garment technologies and machinery. Exhibitors will showcase the latest in textile and apparel technology.
Global brands such as Barudan, Jakob Muller, Karl Mayer, Loepfe Graf, Lonati, Oerlikon, Pai Lung, Picanol, Rieter, Santoni, LMW, Shima Seiki, Thies, Truetzschler and Zimmer will display and sell their products.
The participating countries include: Belgium, Brazil, China, Finland, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, the USA, France, Germany, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. Textile mills in Bangladesh cover a variety of spinning, weaving, dyeing, printing and finishing mills. Their contribution to the country’s gross domestic product amounts to 13 per cent. The sector has established a strong backward linkage industry for the country’s garment industry.
Textile mills in Bangladesh meet 90 per cent of the requirements for knitwear and 40 per cent of woven fabric requirements by garment factories. In doing so, they help the country save a substantial amount of foreign currency. Last year, exhibitors sold machinery worth $220 million at the fair.
Milano Unica has entered collaboration with the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) for a program that will enable American designers to work in Italian textile production mills to raise awareness for ‘Made in Italy’ techniques and methods of developing textiles.
Milano Unica is an international luxury textile trade fair with bi-annual trade shows. The Council of Fashion Designers of America, founded in 1962 works to strengthen the influence of American fashion in the global economy. It is an organisation of North American designers of fashion and fashion accessories.
Through this program Milano Unica can support American designers and show them the Italian way of craftsmanship. And for CFDA the partnership gives emerging American designers the chance to create custom fabrics with Italy’s best production houses. The designers will work with artisans to create their own signature textiles for their spring/summer 2017 collections, which will be shown at both the New York Fashion Week and with an installation at Milano Unica.
Accessories designer Gigi Burris and women’s wear designer Ryan Roche will participate in the first edition of the program, which will also include a menswear designer. Italy is well-known for fabrics. It has multigenerational companies with a lot of richness and heritage.
cfda.com/
China’s cotton imports continue to plummet. Its policies encourage textile manufacturers to use domestic supplies and low oil prices have driven increased use of synthetics. The country’s cotton imports are down 40 per cent from 2014. Imports could drop another 40 per cent in 2016.
China has built a large stockpile of cotton estimated at 11 million tons. China terminated the floor price policy on cotton in 2014 that paid farmers above market prices. Cotton prices became more market oriented as the price gap between domestic cotton and imported cotton sharply decreased.
Low crude oil prices recently had pushed down synthetic fiber prices and made it more competitive than cotton. China imported 4.15 million tons of cotton in 2013, but that dropped to 2.44 million tons the next year before falling to its current low level. Of the 894,000-ton quota China’s required to make available to textile companies, only 33 per cent goes to state-owned companies. But if the government does dump its reserve on the market, pushing prices below that of imported cotton, China could import close to, or even less than, the 894,000-ton quota of cotton in 2016. Import quotas were not so high last year as in previous years.
Owing to a rise in demand for Bangladeshi apparel products in international market, the country’s apparel export grew by 27.77 per cent in five years during the 2011-2015. According to Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data, Bangladesh generated $19.21 billion from apparel export in 2011, and income soared to $26.60 billion in 2015. Export growth was driven by a rise in demand for local RMG products in the existing markets in US, UK, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and Canada, as well as in some newly created markets across West and East, especially in Japan, China, Brazil, Russia, Turkey and Australia.
According to RMG exporters, they successfully drew the attention of world’s leading apparel retailers over the years by offering very competitive prices taking advantage of the Chinese exporters’ reluctance in producing low-cost RMG goods. With RMG export worth $26.60 billion last year, Bangladesh has already become the world’s second largest apparel exporter.
Meanwhile, local apparel industry also improved its compliance standards with the help of the concerted efforts of two buyers’ platforms, the ILO, Germany, the Netherlands and the government following several major disasters at some garment factories in 2012 and 2013. According to Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA), Apparel exports stood at $23.50 billion in 2013, $19.78 billion in 2012 and $19.21 billion in 2011. BGMEA said a number of Eastern European countries like Bulgaria and Czech Republic and Malta are showing promising outlook in terms of importing RMG goods from Bangladesh.
According to exporters, exploring more non-traditional markets to boost garment export is important for Bangladesh to ensure sustainable export growth in the apparel sector.
The Indian textile industry has flagged concerns about an Environment Ministry move to mandate virtually all textile firms to reduce their effluent discharge to zero. The argument is that such a stipulation goes beyond what the developed world follows and would make Indian firms even more uncompetitive at a time when export orders are shrinking. Accounting for 14 per cent of India’s exports, the textile industry is India’s largest employer after agriculture. But, the industry has recently lost ground to Bangladesh and Vietnam in the global market as the preferred supplier for readymade garments.
The Ministry of Environment and Forest issued a draft notification in late November that proposes new pollution control standards for effluents from the textile industry. It also requires all textile units set up in clusters such as Tirupur in Tamil Nadu to set up common effluent treatment plants to ensure zero liquid discharge, irrespective of their waste water quantity.
According to the ministry, the industry players would be granted 30 months to construct or augment their existing effluent treatment plants to comply with this new regulation under the Environment Protection Act of 1986. No new or existing units will be allowed to operate their factories after that, in the absence of such arrangements.
In this regard, the industry members have raised their apprehensions about the implications of the new norms in a missive sent earlier this week to the ministries of textiles as well as environment and forests, questioning the assumption that textile units discharge effluents without treating them.
According to A Didar Singh, Secretary General of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), ‘zero discharge’ is not the only solution. The effluent can be treated and reused for various other purposes including discharge in the sea at least in coastal states.
Philippine Exporters are looking to penetrate new overseas markets in a bid to achieve export revenue target of $102 billion in 2016 amid lingering weakness in the global economy. According to Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (PHILEXPORT) President Sergio Ortiz-Luis Jr exporters are looking at markets to replace the problematic, traditional markets like Europe and China which are not doing very well. We are looking at some countries in Asia and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) countries. They are all deemed to be at a similar stage of newly advanced economic development.
The government data indicated that about 54 per cent of the country’s merchandise exports in November, 2015 went to East Asian countries, while commodities exported to ASEAN member countries comprised 14 per cent. Shrinking global demand and the ASEAN 2015 are identified in the Philippine Export Development Plan (PEDP) as among the opportunities and challenges facing the export sector, noted Ortiz-Luis.
Under the PEDP, the country’s export of goods and services can hit $102 billion this year from last year’s estimated $91 billion, said the PHILEXPORT chief. The sector makes up about 60 percent of the country’s total export trade.
The yarn industry in India is facing a sharp demand drop from China, resulting in excess supply. In December 2015, 88 countries imported spun yarn from India, with China accounting for 27.8 per cent of the total value with imports plunging 32.9 per cent in terms of volume year on year (YoY) and declining 39.5 per cent in value YoY. India’s overall spun yarn exports in December were down by 11.5 per cent YoY in volume terms and declined 18.8 per cent in value term. Unit price realization was up US cent 1 a kg from November 2015 and down US cents 24 a kg from December 2014.
In China, yarn import prices in December were less significantly high in yuan terms, with benchmark 32s cotton being however offered at the same price level than on the domestic and import markets. The fall of the renminbi offered some support to domestic producers after import prices were raised in yuan terms in the last weeks. Since import yarn prices were high and domestic yarn prices were declining, China's yarn imports from India remained extremely depressed in December, by contrast with the surge in the same period a year ago.
Partly due to a Chinese demand increasingly shifting to lower counts and qualities, average import price continued declining in December. Yarn producers were also trying to reduce their inventories before the new year holidays and were ready to negotiate prices.
"China’s economy is facing tough times with the yuan depreciating against other currencies especially US dollar. The slowdown is also affecting China’s denim manufacturing town of Guangdong. What price are you willing to give? This is common question asked by traders in the ‘denim capital’ nowadays as merchants shrug off and walk away from them. Business is getting harder in the International Jeans City mall Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong province."
China’s economy is facing tough times with the yuan depreciating against other currencies especially US dollar. The slowdown is also affecting China’s denim manufacturing town of Guangdong. What price are you willing to give? This is common question asked by traders in the ‘denim capital’ nowadays as merchants shrug off and walk away from them. Business is getting harder in the International Jeans City mall Guangzhou in China’s Guangdong province.
Slow sales dampens business
Visiting merchants are in no rush to seal a deal. Sales staff far outnumber customers at malls and merchants are the only foreign buyers present. Domestic sales are weak and export orders have almost disappeared altogether. The pressure on traders in Xintang is almost palpable. The grimy riverside town has been through a lot, from deadly water pollution to tensions between local and migrant workers that culminated in violent anti-police riots in 2011.
China’s plan to climb the value chain makes the road ahead for Xintang all the more arduous. Even as the country ‘follows the classic path of moving up the value chain’ as Japan, Korea and Hong Kong have done, the risks of getting caught in a middle-income trap are rising, says Stanford University professor Ian Morris.
In the late 19th century, Germany and the United States invented ‘whole new forms of production and management’ to overtake Britain. The question for China was ‘whether it can repeat that achievement in the early 21st century,’ wrote Morris, the author of Why the West Rules – For Now in an email.
China’s GDP growth has slowed to its lowest level in a quarter of a century. Its exports, once a pillar underpinning the country’s economic miracle, declined last year for the first time since 2009. It was the second such annual fall since late leader Deng Xiaoping opened the Chinese economy to the outside world. 
As Wei Jianguo, a former commerce vice-minister whose portfolio covered foreign trade says, exports are facing a dangerous time and exporters are struggling to find enough orders. Wei is now general secretary of a government think tank, the China Centre for International Economic Exchanges.
Orders for China’s low-end products are set to continue falling as costs rise and competitiveness drops. Chinese business owners, in particular those in the Pearl River Delta region, know they can no longer rely on cheap labour and land supply, said Bai Ming, a researcher with the Commerce Ministry.
The rice bowl is not there anymore; business owners have to find a new one from better technology and management. But it can’t be done overnight, Bai said. Even though, it is important for China to maintain the country’s massive job market and social stability, labour-intensive manufacturing is not the future for China’s economy.
During the global financial crisis in 2008 when nearly 20 million migrant workers were laid off, then premier Wen Jiabao was so concerned that he launched a 4-trillion-yuan fiscal stimulus package to boost growth. The move left a pile of unpaid debt and excess industrial capacity.
Perhaps, it is time for China to improve its technology and labour management systems.
Fespa an event about digital and textile printing is taking place in the Netherlands, March 8 to 11, 2016. It will showcase the very latest garment decoration and textile print technologies and applications from global exhibitors. Visitors can discover an inspirational platform to help grow their garment print business.
The show is attended by textile print professionals, retailers, designer labels, clothing brands to see the latest developments from within the industry and stay up-to-date with the hottest trends.
Textile printing is proving to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the digital wide format print industry.
The event will feature wide format digital machinery, consumables and inks, commercial printing machinery, embroidery, promotional products and work wear, T-shirt printing machinery and inks, 3D printing, industrial printing, sublimation and transfer printing, cleaning products, chemicals and adhesives, sign and display systems, digital signage and print and business management software.
The digital textile conference being held will provide printers with information on expanding their textile offering. It will cover topics like the growth and creative development of digital textile markets, fabric printing, smart textiles, and digital prints in fast fashion.
Bruno Basso and Christopher Brooke have pioneered the digital print process in fashion, making history with their ground breaking 100 per cent digitally printed collection.
digital.fespa.com/
