FW
Garment exporters in India want authorisation, inspection and classification norms to be simplified. In fact, the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has urged the Textiles Ministry to simplify the new foreign trade policy’s authorisation, inspection and classification norms. They have urged the government to withdraw the need for a landing certificate for exported goods, required as proof to claim benefits under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). Introduced in April 2015, the scheme aims to boost sagging exports, covering tariff lines for 5,012 items that earn duty credits. Exporters say getting the documents to show proof of landing at the destination country entails cost and delay.
While filing shipping bill, exporters are required to declare they are claiming rewards under MEIS and to mark Y in the reward item box. Recently many had complained of inefficient customs house agents inadvertently ticking N in the reward item box while filing the shipping bills with customs. Thus even though the item in many cases was eligible, once an N has been ticked, such shipping bills are not transmitted to the online system run by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).
To help exporters claim MEIS benefits in such cases, DGFT has allowed them to give physical copies of the shipping bills after filing an MEIS application to its regional authorities. However, this relaxation is restricted to exports made in April and May 2015. An extension on this has been demanded. Calls for proper identification and classification of goods have also been demanded, going forward from the current challan system currently followed. Meanwhile, AEPC Chairman Ashok G Rajani has called for a stimulus from the government, stating that the garment export industry has the potential to generate 2,200 jobs on every investment of Rs 30 crores. They have urged the government to follow Bangladesh by, allowing vehicles carrying finished export merchandise and headed towards exit points like sea ports, airports and rail heads to display ‘On Export Duty’ signage. So, too, for vehicles carrying input material for production of export merchandise, with a signage of ‘On Export Processing Duty’, to facilitate easier transportation and to avoid corruption.
Garment exporters in India want authorisation, inspection and classification norms to be simplified. In fact, the Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has urged the Textiles Ministry to simplify the new foreign trade policy’s authorisation, inspection and classification norms. They have urged the government to withdraw the need for a landing certificate for exported goods, required as proof to claim benefits under the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). Introduced in April 2015, the scheme aims to boost sagging exports, covering tariff lines for 5,012 items that earn duty credits. Exporters say getting the documents to show proof of landing at the destination country entails cost and delay.
While filing shipping bill, exporters are required to declare they are claiming rewards under MEIS and to mark Y in the reward item box. Recently many had complained of inefficient customs house agents inadvertently ticking N in the reward item box while filing the shipping bills with customs. Thus even though the item in many cases was eligible, once an N has been ticked, such shipping bills are not transmitted to the online system run by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT).
To help exporters claim MEIS benefits in such cases, DGFT has allowed them to give physical copies of the shipping bills after filing an MEIS application to its regional authorities. However, this relaxation is restricted to exports made in April and May 2015. An extension on this has been demanded. Calls for proper identification and classification of goods have also been demanded, going forward from the current challan system currently followed. Meanwhile, AEPC Chairman Ashok G Rajani has called for a stimulus from the government, stating that the garment export industry has the potential to generate 2,200 jobs on every investment of Rs 30 crores. They have urged the government to follow Bangladesh by, allowing vehicles carrying finished export merchandise and headed towards exit points like sea ports, airports and rail heads to display ‘On Export Duty’ signage. So, too, for vehicles carrying input material for production of export merchandise, with a signage of ‘On Export Processing Duty’, to facilitate easier transportation and to avoid corruption.
China’s demand for viscose filament yarn (VFY) in 2015 and there was less stimulus from popular varieties. The uptrend in the export market was also reversed on the back of falling consumption in major consumers of India and Europe and sales in overseas market are expected to decrease by 10 per cent year on year.
In China, sales of fine-denier products improved, but the volume was not large enough to fill the gap. Although exports remained unsatisfied, there were still divergences in different grades of products.
Continuous spinning and fine-denier viscose filament yarn among high-end products as well is widely applied in the downstream sector like knitting fabric, so the demand is not largely restrained by the environment of industry.
Besides demand from high-end products, there is room of further increase in new areas. This increase mainly comes from the substitution of high-grade silk. Currently, the super fine-denier viscose filament yarn produced by first-grade and several third-grade plants are mainly used to replace silk products. With the joint development of upstream and downstream sectors in recent years, the whole substitution trend has been improved significantly.
VFY producers are putting in more efforts on the development of new products as well as the expansion of new applications.
Free trade agreements are expected to help bring foreign direct investment into Vietnam. Firms with FDI have an advantage in low cost price, competitive selling price and stable material source. Most Vietnamese companies do not have these advantages. The biggest difficulty they face is a shortage of raw material, putting them in possibly severe competition in material origin rules as per FTA commitments.
Most FDI backed companies in garments and textiles follow closed production process from materials to finished products, design and distribution. Local firms must improve themselves in both business thought and ways. Authorised agencies need to work with associations to issue policies encouraging enterprises to transfer from processing into export under free on board term, original design manufacturers or original brand manufacturers.
Vietnam should have a high determination to develop into a fashion hub of Southeast Asia in future, feel experts. There should be policies to promote equipment manufacturing for the support industry, including those in fiber production lines, dyeing, and chemicals for wastewater treatment. There should be a basis for local firms to exploit opportunities and tax incentives. These policies will work to reduce cost price of support products. Customs and tax procedures should be reformed.
Indians in the US have objected to T-shirts and tank tops made by Print Syndicate which feature images of Hindu gods. They say, Lord Ganesha is revered in Hinduism and is meant to be worshipped in temples or home shrines and not to be trivialised on consumer products. They want the Ohio-based brand to withdraw these products and offer a formal apology. They say Hindus are all for free artistic expression and speech as much as anybody else but that faith is something sacred and attempts at trivialising it would hurt its followers.
Print Syndicate claims to offer consumers access to timely, curated, well-designed and high-quality products that allow them to express who they are. It says it adheres to values like integrity, compassion and fairness. Its products (apparel, phone cases, house wares, etc.) are sold through the company’s six e-commerce brands.
In Hinduism, Lord Ganesha is worshipped as the god of wisdom and the remover of obstacles and is invoked before the beginning of any major undertaking. There are about three million Hindus in the US. Hinduism is the oldest and the third largest religion of the world with about a billion adherents.
Australia’s wool production is forecasted to fall by seven per cent. The decline comes following six season of relatively stable wool production. Seasonal conditions in a number of major sheep producing regions of Australia have been drier than expected, which has resulted in lower fleece weights.
The major sheep regions of Queensland continue to see tough conditions and the sell-off of sheep continues in the state. Even in New South Wales, there are areas where seasonal conditions have been more difficult than expected. Tough conditions are being partially offset by good to very good conditions in north-eastern South Australia and parts of New South Wales.
For the 2015-16 season to November, tests show a reduction in volumes of wool between 20.6 and 24.5 microns, with smaller declines for finer merino wool and for crossbred wool. This resulted in a 0.1 micron decline in the mean fiber diameter for Australia to November.
There has been a release of on-farm stocks held over from previous seasons as well as the forward offering of wool held in brokers’ stores and earlier than usual deliveries of recently shorn wool in response to the spike in wool prices in May and June. But these stocks may not be available in 2015/’16.
Gap is committed to cutting its absolute greenhouse gas emissions. The company plans to halve emissions at its stores, offices and distribution facilities around the world from 2015 levels by the end of 2020, after successfully reducing them by 38 per cent from 2008 levels as of the end of 2015.
Much of the reductions so far have come from installing long-lasting, more efficient LED lighting and smart thermostats at stores, turning off unnecessary lights at night and using an industry shipment program to improve fuel efficiency. Shuttering stores has also contributed, but to a lesser extent.
Gap’s commitment only extends to facilities it owns or operates, and therefore the factories that produce its clothes but not the third-party factories that produce its clothes. The retailer will also try to divert 80 per cent of the waste from its US facilities away from landfills by 2020. In 2014, it diverted just 29 per cent of that waste.
The fashion industry hasn’t been kind on the planet. Toxic chemicals are used to make some clothes, lots of wasted and polluted water and the mountains of apparel tossed into landfills every year. And huge amounts of energy are expended along the life of a garment, from manufacturing to transportation to a sales floor.
www.gap.com/
Textile firms in the US are willing to support the Trans Pacific Partnership. They feel the deal meets their key objectives. Under the negotiated terms Vietnamese cut-and-sew operations in most cases would have to buy yarn and fabric from the United States or other countries within the 12-nation free-trade zone the agreement would create. Currently, Vietnam gets most of its yarn and fabric from China, which is not included in TPP.
The 11 Pacific Rim countries are Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. TPP is a a trade agreement that will open markets, set high-standard trade rules, and address current issues in the global economy. By doing so, TPP will promote jobs and growth in the United States and across the Asia-Pacific region.
US textile and apparel manufacturers sold more than $10 billion worth of products to TPP countries in 2013, an increase of 5.4 per cent from the previous year. Many US yarns, fabrics, and apparel currently face tariffs as high as 20 per cent upon entering some TPP countries. The American goal in the TPP negotiations is to remove tariff and non-tariff barriers to textile and apparel exports to enhance the competitiveness of its producers in the Asia-Pacific region.
The European Union has banned nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPE), widely used in clothing, because they pose an unacceptable risk to the environment. The regulation will come into force from February 2016 and companies will then have five years to remove the chemical from their products and supply chains.
This means there should be no NPE in any textile placed in the market after February 2021 which can be reasonably expected to be washed in water during its normal lifecycle, in concentrations equal to or greater than 0.01 per cent by weight of that textile or of each part of the textile article.
The restriction will not apply to second-hand textile articles or new textile articles produced without the use of NPEs, but exclusively from recycled textiles. NPE degrades in the environment into substances, including nonylphenol , which accumulates in the bodies of fish and disrupts their hormones, harming fertility, growth and sexual development.
NPE is widely used in the textile industry. It was found in waste water discharge from two textile processing facilities in China supplying global apparel firms. The proposal to ban the chemical was brought forward by Sweden in 2013. NPE is used in textile production as wetting agents, detergents, and emulsifiers.
The Hub will be held in China, April 9 to 11, 2016. This is Asia’s premium invite-only urban focused street wear and denim fashion trade show. The Hub caters to premium brands and designers keen to expand into the Asia-Pacific market. Specifically the brands cover categories of men’s wear, women’s wear, footwear, accessories and lifestyle products. Carefully edited international brands are under one roof in a relaxed business-like environment. While some brands are long-time favorites with a dedicated fan base, others are emerging voices who have a unique design perspective.
Among the brands are: Aijek, Bleach Project, Boy London, Capitale Nord, Chrysalis, Dienastie, Flying Zacchinis, Fox Umbrellas, Jack Moran, JUMA, Luxe Deluxe, Node, Rack and Ruin, Spellbound, Swims, Tom Smarte and Zhang Chi. There are many interesting contacts and networking opportunities at The Hub. It’s a platform to open doors from small retailers to larger distributors.
Street and casual fashions are starting to take off now in China. Buyers attending are professionals and retailers. The event’s position also helps set the right vibe for presenting a new range. It is a strategic venue to negotiate and close deals and a single place to meet high-value customers.
www.thehub.hk/
