The Indian luxury market is expected to grow by ten per cent over the next five years. Global brands have been making a beeline into India though strategic tie ups.

The country’s fashion market is driven by premiumization, greater penetration of e-commerce and a higher focus on private labels as well as entry of international brands. Wealthy GenZ buyers are making a beeline for high-end stores. They are keen to splurge, and spend the big bucks right now.

Surge in ultra high net-worth individuals

There's also a surge in the number of Indian ultra high net-worth individuals. This population has risen 11 per cent between 2020 and 2021, and is expected to grow by as much as 39 per cent between 2021 and 2026. These big spenders are powering the Indian luxury market. India's luxury goods market is expected to grow annually by eight per cent. The number of wealthy Indians has grown substantially over the last decade. There has been an 11 per cent increase in people with incomes above $30 million since 2011. That number is expected to climb to 39 per cent by 2026.

India voted seventh most valued nation

India has also been voted as the seventh most valued nation brand. With an increase in 32 per cent in its brand value, India has moved up one position in the most-valued nation brands list.

US imports of leather apparel and accessories from China during January 2022 to September 2022 grew by 29 per cent year on year.

During this period US imports of leather apparel and accessories from China were 27 per cent of its total imports. The other top five suppliers were Italy (15 per cent), Cambodia (12 per cent), France (eight per cent), Indonesia (six per cent), and India (six per cent).

India is making efforts to boost leather exports. The US-China trade war offers huge opportunities to Indian leather exporters to raise shipments to the United States. This is the only industry where exports of value-added products are almost five times more than the import of inputs/components/accessories and capital goods.

US imports from China have been surging since 2020 when it touched rock bottom. Shipments in January 2021 to September 2021 were 12 per cent higher than inbound shipments in the corresponding period of the preceding year when they came crashing down by 45 per cent year on year. Inbound shipments were $4.831 billion from January 2017 to September 2017, and then they witnessed a downward trend to slip by two per cent year on year in January 2018 to September 2018. They further reduced to $3.393 billion in the corresponding period of 2019.

India’s textile fabric market is growing at a CAGR of seven per cent. Textile fabric covers polyester, cotton, poly-cotton and other varieties of fabrics.

The rise of e-commerce portals, which gives small-scale producers who were confined to a specific geographic area more exposure, has increased the demand for clothing. Overall the demand for clothing will rise in the next few years due to social media, e-commerce, influencer marketing, urbanisation and increased disposable income, which will all contribute to the growth of the textile fabric industry.

At the same time, China’s textile fabric market is expected to grow at a CAGR of seven per cent from 2022 to 2029.To achieve a substantial market share in the worldwide textile fabric market, and strengthen their position, manufacturers are pursuing expansion methods such as current developments, mergers and acquisitions, product innovations, collaborations, joint ventures and partnerships etc.

As low-cost, lightweight, multifunctional materials gain popularity in athletics apparel during the next few years, market participants will discover attractive prospects. Through efforts to improve products, research and development will help the market grow even more.

Despite all the challenges across the globe, the global textile fabric market is showing good growth.

Turkey’s apparel exports grew by around five per cent from January 2022 to November 2022. The export revenues earned by Turkey in the first eleven months of 2022 are the highest ever and the growth has been driven by soaring demand from Europe amid supply chain bottlenecks and soaring shipping costs.

Exports in November alone rose by close to two per cent, marking the highest November sales so far. Exports of readymade garments however fell five per cent in November 2022 as compared to November 2021.

The European Union imported $ 920 million worth of Turkish ready-to-wear goods in November 2022, followed by the Commonwealth of Independent States with $ 200 million, and other European countries with $ 188 million.

Turkey has a target of becoming one of the top three textile exporting countries in the world. The country is already one of the top five textile exporting countries and overtook countries like South Korea and Italy to claim the fifth spot.The industry has increased its share in global textile exports to an all-time-high of three percent. Turkish textile companies are exporting their products to more than 200 countries. Turkey is well known for near-shore manufacturing capabilities that are of high quality.

The production-linked incentive scheme for India’s textile sector has attracted investments of Rs 1,536 crores.

Approval letters were issued to 56 applicants who met the eligibility criteria. Applications under the PLI scheme for textiles were received through a web portal from January 1, 2022, to February 28, 2022. The PLI scheme with an approved outlay of Rs 10,683 crores was launched to promote the production of manmade fiber, apparel, manmadefabrics and products of technical textiles in the country to enable the textile industry achieve size and scale and become competitive.

Applicants who have completed the mandatory criteria for the formation of a new company have had approval letters issued to them. Investment to the tune of Rs 1,536 crores has been made so far.

There is now the second edition of the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme. The scheme for garments, made-ups and home textiles will have lower minimum investment and turnover requirements so as to attract small and medium entities. The incentives on offer are slightly lower than what was offered under PLI 1 but the scheme is still attractive. The minimum investment requirement for the first part is Rs300 crores with a minimum turnover requirement of Rs600 crores. Part two requires a minimum investment of Rs100 crores with a minimum turnover requirement of Rs200 crores.

Pakistan’s textile exports plunged by 19 percent in November 2022 as compared to the corresponding period last year. So says All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA).

At a time when the country is faced with immense economic challenges and looking toward the IMF and friendly countries for inflows of dollars to meet its external liabilities, the continuous fall in textile exports is alarming and expected to add to its economic woes.

The textile sector plays a significant role in supporting the economy and continues to be in the spotlight owing to country’s dependence on foreign exchange.This vital sector, which also provides massive job opportunities, contributed around 60 percent to total exports during the last fiscal year. The devaluation against the dollar which would have given Pakistan’s textile exporters a competitive advantage over its competitors in terms of pricing has not helped. Instead the sector is faced with a crisis that includes liquidity constraints, energy shortages and non-functioning of new projects.The recent floods also destroyed the cotton crop with only five million bales available this year while the demand of the industry is above 14 million bales.

Also foreign exchange issues have curtailed the import of cotton and other essential inputs.

Pakistan’s cotton production for the year 2022-23 is estimated to fall by 43 per cent compared to the past year.

The primary reason for this year’s situation is the devastating monsoon floods that damaged major cottongrowing regions. Pakistan is the fifth largest cotton producer globally but the country will need to import at least five million bales in the ongoing fiscal year to meet the demand from the textile sector.

Farmers in Pakistan have continued to grapple with severe droughts and catastrophes like floods. Sugar mills have come up in cotton growing areas. Sugarcane has proved a better alternative for farmers tired of failing to protect cotton from pinkboll worm and other constraints, but the reward cannot outweigh the cost borne by the country in terms of losing textile exports.

The country’s fields have been populated with biotechnology cotton, originally developed for temperate environments with lower pest infestations and never intended for subtropical climates like in Pakistan and India.Bacterial treated cotton doesn’t grow well at temperatures above 40 degrees, which are usually the average in summer. Given the year-long crop cultivation with no crop planning, insects stay in the field for the whole year. Transgenic varieties can prove to be the key in battling pests, weeds, and climate.

Vietnam’s textile and garment export turnover to Indonesia reached 10.057 million USD in September 2022, more than four times that of the previous month.

The figure was 2.354 million USD in August, 5.257 million USD in July, 3.801 million USD in June, 1.232 million USD in May and 2.719 million USD in April.The increasing trend was recorded in the third quarter of 2022 when the figure neared 17.7 million USD, up from 7.753 million USD in the second quarter, and 15.972 million USD in the first quarter.

Last year, the figure was 13.308 million USD in the fourth quarter, 51 million USD in the third quarter, and 12 million USD in the second quarter.Indonesia’s garment and textile imports from Vietnam reached 53.543 million USD in 2021 and 41.611 million USD in 2020.For the last few years,

Indonesia has been a net importer of clothing products from Vietnam. As it happens Indonesia is a significant importer of used clothes. Indonesia’s import value of used clothes skyrocketed 607 per cent year on year from January 2022 to September 2022.

The large import value of used clothes even beats the import value of knitted and non-knitted clothing and accessories.

Nearly 15 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat have shut down. The reason is high costs and short supply of lignite coal and imported coal. Prices of lignite, imported coal, colours and chemicals have gone up.

The lignite price hike has affected the production cost of textile fabrics as it constitutes around 25 per cent of the production cost to the industry. This time, due to the extremely intense monsoon, the average allocation of 40 per cent of approved capacity (of lignite) has gone down to 20 percent. Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the cost of imported coal has shot up to Rs 8,000 or Rs 9,000 a ton in December this year from Rs 5,400 in June last year.

The industry consumes 80 per cent of imported coal and 20 per cent of lignite in the boiler depending on the quality of textile products and the type of boiler.

Surat is known as India’s textile city. Every day over four crore meters of textile cloth are produced in Surat and passed through different processes of dyeing, printing and packaging. There are around 350 textile dyeing and printing mills in Surat that employ lakhs of migrant labourers.

Bangladesh's apparel exports declined in the first 21 days of December 2022.

This is attributed to inflation in the sector’s major export destinations fueled by the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. Garment export earnings dropped suddenly in September after a long stretch of growth for the previous 13 months. Then they bounced back in October and November this year as some buyers received their deferred shipments of goods during that time. The slowdown of apparel shipments was expected this year as most factories have been receiving less work orders compared to previous years.

This situation is expected to continue till April-May 2023. Some factories are running factories at 90 per cent capacity. Garment prices have fallen about three per cent or four per cent compared to last year. Prices of raw materials like yarn have fallen but that is hardly enough to make any profit for most of the factories. Some usually receive a number of orders by December every year to keep them occupied for the next six or seven months but this year no orders have come after April.

Apparel exporters have been facing many challenges in running their units. For one they have been struggling to pay workers’ salaries regularly.