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Amid rising labour costs there, the Japanese garment industry has more or less shifted production from China to Bangladesh and other Asian countries.
But even after last Friday's terrorist attack in Dhaka, Japanese clothing makers will continue to do business in Bangladesh as it remains important both in terms of sales and production. However, the Japanese would demand additional security, it is understood.
Fast Retailing, the operator of the Uniqlo casual wear chain, is one of the major Japanese companies that is conducting business in Bangladesh. The Japanese company established a joint venture with Grameen Bank's local unit to operate stores and set up a production office to supervise factories.
Fast Retailing has been boosting production in Bangladesh along with Sweden's Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) and Inditex, the Spanish owner of Zara. These so-called fast-fashion brands are supported by their Bangladesh operations.
Some Japanese companies that have client plants in Bangladesh, such as casual clothing retailer Adastria and men's clothing store Aoki, said that they will keep their policies unchanged.
A representative of Fiber maker Toray Industries that is also operating its joint venture plant there have said that his company was not considering scaling back operations immediately given its favorable environment for exporting to Western markets. He further added that Bangladesh is one of their important production bases.
Indian Texpreneurs Federation (ITF), an apex body for textile industry in the region, has made a few fundamental and transformational suggestions to the Centre to drive textile sector towards the USD 300 billion export target by 2024-25.
In a letter to Textile Minister Smriti Irani, congratulating her for taking over the ministry, ITF Secretary Prabhu Dhamodharan said that in the last two years, the ministry had created a good platform for growth by improving the efficiency in the system and has also designed few good policies to trigger growth in the sector.
He was of the view that the domestic textile industry was now equipped with capacities to export fabrics and can capture this huge market if the ministry and industry worked in tandem.
An immediate Preferential Trading Area (PTA) with the UK would help strengthen India's position, the ITF secretary said that apart from the traditional markets, tremendous effort was required to tap new markets like Russia.
Inspite of technological advancements, India was not able to figure out the exact crop size and exact estimates and stock levels of cotton, leading to heavy speculation, as witnessed in the last 60 days when there was a 35 per cent spurt in prices, he remarked.
The government should idealise a strong mechanism to analyse and announce the exact cotton crop and stock data once a month, he suggested.
Further, he said that the fashion world was moving towards Cotton-Man Made Fibre (MMF) blends and with high MMF prices, the Indian industry was lagging behind in the fastest growing segment and duty rationalisation of MMF fibres will trigger tremendous growth in this segment.
Prabhu also requested Irani to visit important textile clusters and have a direct connect with the regional industry Associations in order to understand the scope of growth of each major clusters and start collaboration towards growth.
The biggest US apparel-focused retailer, Gap Inc. posted June sales that topped analysts’ estimates, a sign the company’s long-promised turnaround could be taking hold.
A key benchmark, total same-store sales, rose 2 per cent in June, the San Francisco-based retailer said recently. Analysts had predicted a 3.6 per cent decline, according to estimates compiled by Retail Metrics. The company’s off-price Old Navy brand led the results, with comparable sales increasing 5 per cent last month, topping the 3.3 per cent drop analysts expected.
The June results could signal that the improvement Chief Executive Officer Art Peck predicted would arrive in the spring is beginning to materialize. Traffic was bolstered by the Memorial Day holiday, which fell in fiscal June, the company said.
Trends reversed for Old Navy, which had stumbled as comparable sales slipped in six of the past eight months. In May, the company said it was shutting Japanese Old Navy stores and refocusing on North America and China.
With a good beginning of the monsoon season, the domestic textile market is expected to grow by 7-8 per cent in FY17, the Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) has said.
“The onset of good monsoon and Government initiatives may help in growth of 7-8 per cent of domestic textile market, which was estimated at USD 60 billion in FY16,” Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) Chairman Naishadh Parikh has been quoted to have said.
Welcoming the new Textiles Minister Smriti Irani, Parikh was quoted as saying that the appointment of a dynamic, progressive and result-oriented cabinet minister like Irani has come at an opportune time.
The apex chamber of textiles in India hoped that the industry would achieve the ambitious goal of creating 5 crore jobs in the next few years.
China is certainly doing a lot in Cambodia, becoming the country’s largest aid donor and source of foreign investment. Between 1994 and 2013, Chinese investment in Cambodia was about US$10 billion, focused mainly on agriculture, mining, infrastructure projects, hydro-power dams and garment production. Since 1992, China has also provided around US$3 billion in concessional loans and grants to Cambodia. This gesture has garnered appreciation from Cambodia’s government.
Excessive dependence on China has also placed Cambodian foreign policy firmly under China’s influence. During a meeting between Chinese and ASEAN ministers over the South China Sea in June 2016, Cambodia joined two other ASEAN nations in refusing to endorse a joint statement criticising China for its construction of military installations in contentious areas in the South China Sea.
Because of China’s influence, Cambodia is reluctant to strongly criticise or protest environmental issues resulting from Chinese policies. Chinese dam building on the upper Mekong River is being tolerated despite potential environmental devastation affecting millions of Cambodians who depend on this water for drinking, irrigation, fishing and sediments that naturally fertilise the land — in short for their food, water, sanitation and, in many instances, their income.
However, the key strategic interest for Cambodia is that its engagement with donors can both deliver infrastructure and the protect human rights and the rule of law. Both Western and Chinese approaches have their benefits. Cambodia’s task is to balance the benefits and obligations of both.
A study by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) suggests that it is the lower-end jobs in the textile and garment industry that are facing the risk of getting replaced by robots or automation. The research, based on two ASEAN-wide surveys of more than 4,000 enterprises and 2,700 students, and qualitative interviews with more than 330 stakeholders in ASEAN and beyond, examines how technology has an impact on workplaces.
According to the study, the robot age is already a reality among ASEAN manufacturers, who have been incrementally introducing robotic automation to improve productivity, quality, consistency, and workplace safety.
However, talking about labour-intensive sectors such as textiles, clothing and footwear, which provide more than nine million jobs in the ASEAN region, the report says, here, skilled jobs are particularly vulnerable to disruptive technologies, like additive manufacturing and automation. This could reduce export growth, as destination markets in Europe and the United States bring production back home. The subsequent social consequences could be particularly significant for some ASEAN economies, such as Cambodia and Vietnam.
As far as India is concerned, when the second wave of automation in the textile and apparel industry halves the use of human capital, those industries will shift their base back to developed nations. This would be a bad situation for India, as for the next two decades, every year, 10 million people are expected to join India's workforce.
In their statement last week, African cotton producers have said that the Nairobi decision was key to improve market access and eliminate export subsidies for cotton.
Speaking for the “cotton four” (C4) countries — Burkina Faso, Benin, Chad and Mali, the economies of which largely rely on cotton exports, Ambassador Thiam Diallo of Mali is reported to have said that the domestic support programs of major producers were continuing to put downward pressure on global prices of cotton, to the detriment of C4 farmers.
This in turn is having dramatic consequences on rural African communities and forcing thousands of young people to turn to migration in order to earn a living. The statement was supported by the Group of Least-developed countries (LDCs).
The remarks were made at the WTO’s latest consultations on cotton which included the fifth dedicated discussion on trade-related developments for cotton as well as Director General’s Consultative Framework Mechanism on Cotton.
The discussions were the first since WTO members adopted a decision on cotton at their 10th Ministerial Conference in Nairobi last December.
The decision requires developed countries to eliminate export subsidies for cotton immediately and for developing countries to do so by 1 January 2017.
Australian wool prices improved further this week, giving weight to the long-held belief of a relative global shortage of suitable greasy wool in front of machines or in stocks.
Broader microns continued to be the focus and largely carried the market higher this week. The progressive rises over the two selling days resulted in 21 micron wools jumping almost 50 cents clean for the sale, approaching 1500 cents clean. The 21 micron category briefly hit 1500 cents in June 2015, but the most notable recent encounter at this level was in 2011 and the record for any 21 indicator is 1682 cents back in 1988.
Widespread enquiry for new business, mainly China, India and to a lesser extent Europe, warned exporters of a dearer market on its way for the merino fleece segment. It was not an over-abundance of quantity that was being sought, but the fact that there were numerous users needing prompt or close in shipment, giving weight to the long held belief of a relative global shortage of suitable greasy wool in front of machines or being held as stock.
Forward sellers appeared to be well-covered and mostly just bought to advantage against the indents to supply their clients with any prompt lots needed prior to the recess.
Price of cotton went higher than that of VSF recently. Both cotton spot and cotton futures are staying at high level currently. Since quantity offered for sales is less than planned, short availability will sustain before new cotton arrives. (Monthly consumption of 600kt is higher than auction volume of 400-500kt). According to the acceptance of spinners and cotton futures tendency, cotton price is likely to be bolstered at 13,000-13,500yuan/mt.
Meanwhile, 2016/17 cotton production is estimated to reduce by around 15 per cent on falling cotton planting area and flooding in the Yangtze River valley. Given cotton supply reduction and rising commodity market, cotton price is expected to remain high.
VSF market has been pushed up by tight supply and higher cotton price since last Friday. Now the price has touched 13,700yuan/mt and most plants still have pre-sale volume. If cotton futures do not dive, VSF price in Jul may hit new highs since the start of 2016. The operating rate of some spinners and fabric mills may be influenced by G20 Summit in August, but the impact may be partially offset by maintenance of Zhejiang Fulida and increasing orders in the second half of year. The atmosphere of peak season may sustain in Sep-Oct but uncertainties exist afterwards.
When an ambitious businesswoman, Susan Bernard, attended the NASA Technology Days in Cleveland, Ohio, and got herself into the know about the latest NASA sensors, the idea of creating textile Instruments struck her mind. The project was about integrating a novel sensor technology into a fabric that would be able to monitor the condition of living beings.
The technology called SansEC, is a sensor that functions using electromagnetic vibrations in the air and does not need to be plugged in or use batteries. Originally developed by NASA Langley researcher Stanley Woodard, SansEC can simultaneously measure different physical phenomena, like temperature and fluid level, and functions even when badly damaged. A remote antenna interrogates the sensor and collects the measurements.
In the beginning, Woodard imagined using the sensor on space systems such as inflatable habitats or the Mars airplane. However, Textile Instruments is now a NASA licensee for the promising technology. With various embroidery techniques and a multitude of fabrics, the sensors can be virtually added to existing materials, uniforms or weaved directly, creating a highly resonant sensor at a low cost with no additional weight, NASA said in a statement. Textile Instruments has already made a prototype blanket of the same.
