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"Apparel business from the US is gradually skewing towards Bangladesh. Recent OTEXA figures reveal, Bangladesh exported denims worth $507.90 million to the US in 2017, a 9.57 per cent surge over previous year. Mexico’s exports, on the other hand dipped 7.92 per cent to reach $793.46 million. During the first six months of the year from January to June ’18, Bangladesh exported denim worth $245 million, a 16.86 per cent growth, while Mexico, the second biggest denim apparel supplier to the US, reported a 2.73 per cent decline to reach $360 million. Rising wages in Mexico as well as trade negotiations on NAFTA is affecting Mexico’s growth. Bangladesh, on the other hand, has a growing denim fabric base, low wages and automation, which has helped it to manufacture more of value-added garments and beat Mexico in women’s and girl’s (WG) jeans category."
Apparel business from the US is gradually skewing towards Bangladesh. Recent OTEXA figures reveal, Bangladesh exported denims worth $507.90 million to the US in 2017, a 9.57 per cent surge over previous year. Mexico’s exports, on the other hand dipped 7.92 per cent to reach $793.46 million. During the first six months of the year from January to June ’18, Bangladesh exported denim worth $245 million, a 16.86 per cent growth, while Mexico, the second biggest denim apparel supplier to the US, reported a 2.73 per cent decline to reach $360 million.
Rising wages in Mexico as well as trade negotiations on NAFTA is affecting Mexico’s growth. Bangladesh, on the other hand, has a growing denim fabric base, low wages and automation, which has helped it to manufacture more of value-added garments and beat Mexico in women’s and girl’s (WG) jeans category.
Low unit prices, controlled supply chain driving growth
The key factor behind Bangladesh’s steep rise is its low unit price. The unit prices offered by Bangladesh were around $76.27 per dozen in H1’18, which is
much less than Mexico whose unit prices were $101.92 per dozen. High unit prices hurt Mexico’s denim exports despite having ‘zero’ duty rates advantage for jeans shipped to the US under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
In FY 2017-18, Bangladesh exported denim apparels worth $2 billion which is expected to cross $6 billion by 2021. This will be drive by new investments by Bangladeshi denim exporters both in fabrics and garments manufacturing which would increase capacity, push up export earnings, offer competitive prices, and take the lead in the global denim market.
Bangladesh has complete control on its entire denim supply chain and has also improved safety standards in apparel units. World’s top LEED certified factories in Bangladesh are producing denim fabric every year.
Challenges hindering investments
Bangladesh, which holds a large share in the US market, has an enormous opportunity to grow its exports, especially in premium denim jeans which is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.23 per cent by 2020. However, there are numerous challenges on its growth path for example; expensive utility services are hindering new investment in the country’s denim sector. The country is still dependent on imported fabrics for 50 per cent of its production, which increases the cost of the product as well as shipping time. And even though manufacturers are opting for value-added products, it still needs to focus on how to stay ahead in the race.
Taiwan Textile Federation (TTF) and its sub-industries organised a trade mission from August 6 -10, 2018 that comprised six Taiwanese companies visiting nine Indonesian textile players. During this trade mission, Taiwan suppliers showcased their products in the athletic apparel and outdoor segment. The mission also dwelt on the possibility of collaboration between the two countries in the athleisure segment
The economic growth of Indonesia in recent years has relied mainly on rising household expenditure and growing inclination towards sports and fitness. The country’s changing lifestyle is expected to generate particularly strong demand h for athletic apparel and footwear, giving manufacturers in this segment an appealing alternative to exports. Considering Taiwan’s value and proposition in global textile market, it will be the best partner for the Indonesian textile and garment industry to comply with the athleisure trend.
The average North American throws away over 80 lbs. of clothing a year. Most of this clothing sits in landfills for decades, even though 90 per cent of those items could be reused or repurposed.
To make it easier to reuse or repurpose those items and also divert them from landfills, Kidney Clothes, in partnership with Peel Region, is promoting the repurposing of these textiles with a convenient home pickup program. All cloth and cloth-based items will be accepted including clothing, linens, curtains, accessories (purses, belts and wallets) as well as outerwear like shoes and coats.
Kidney Clothes hopes this program will also assist in public education about the importance of reducing textile waste and working toward a circular fashion industry, reducing the environmental impact of an item from production to the end of its life cycle.
UK-based retailer John Lewis has launched a pilot buy-back program in partnership with recycling specialist Stuffsr. The scheme will be made available to a small number of customers as a precursor to rolling out a full-scale version later in the year.
Similarly, fashion retailer Guess has announced a partnership with I:CO in an initiative which facilitates the collection, certified sorting, reuse and recycling of used apparel and footwear.
China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) is planning to invest in Africa’s fastest-growing economy, Ethiopia. The NGO will join other Chinese firms already established in the country to grow the East Asian’s foreign direct investments in the East African nation. The growing and promising market of Ethiopia has lured many investors from Swiss to Indian, Americans to Turkish and Germans to seize business opportunities in East African country. Ethiopia plans to generate close to $30 million in exports from the textile and apparel sector by 2030.
China’s textile industry is the world’s largest both in production and exports. The increasing demand in apparel market has flourished the nation’s textile sector and changed its economic performance. China’s industrial clusters have played a pivotal role in the growth of the textile and apparel sector. The Chinese government has sought for keeping a balance in the economy by nurturing the industry.
Non-profit organisation Textile Exchange in association with auditor KPMG has developed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) roadmap for the apparel, retail and textile sector. This is a set of 17 universally agreed-upon goals addressing the top current environmental, social and economic issues.
SDGs address critical operational risks and offers guidance to apparel, retail and textile suppliers, brands and retailers on business considerations and opportunities for shared value, an SDG engagement model, best practices and multi-stakeholder initiatives, and considerations for top sourcing countries.
Threading the Needle is an important first step in understanding how existing industry initiatives can advance the 2030 agenda, including adoption of more sustainable fibers and materials, responsible production and circular business practices. This is a report that provides a roadmap for companies seeking to realize the SDGs in their own sector and value chain. The report aims to provide companies with guidance and information that will help prioritize their SDG focus where it can generate the most impact.
Threading the Needle is an information source for the apparel industry to tackle the global challenges of SDGs. This valued tool kit is a starting point to integrate the SDGs into their sustainability platforms and goals. It sees collaboration as the key for impactful change.
While the US has threatened to pull out of the WTO, China has called for WTO reform to make the global trade system fairer and more effective. The 23-year-old trading club is run on the basis of consensus, meaning that every one of its 164 members has an effective veto and it is almost impossible to get agreement on any change to the rules. G20 countries want to improve the World Trade Organization.
The European Union (EU) and Britain plan to put forward a joint proposal for reform of the terms of their World Trade Organization (WTO) membership in September or October. The two sides are also discussing sharing liabilities from trade disputes including WTO litigation over Airbus subsidies in a long-running case with the United States.
The joint approach would address aspects of the EU's WTO membership terms, known as its WTO schedules that are not easily split between Britain and the other 27 EU members: agricultural tariff quotas, agricultural subsidies and commitments on services trade. The plan is they would explain together how they would see the disentanglement of the United Kingdom from the EU commitments and schedules.
The joint approach would also deal with Britain’s wish to join the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement, which liberalises access to procurement markets between signatories.
Bangladesh unions recently staged street protests to reject the $95 a month minimum wage fixed by the government for the country's four million garment workers. The new wage marked a 51 per cent rise and would be applied from December. The current minimum wage of 5,300 taka ($63) was set in 2013 after at least 1,130 people were killed when the Rana Plaza garment factory in Dhaka collapsed. The new wage was set at 8,000 taka.
Bangladesh unions have been staging protests for higher salaries for years. In December 2016, one of their largest protests was brutally ended by police, with hundreds of workers and union activists detained and charged with violence while more than 1,500 workers were sacked. The US-based Fair Labour Association monitoring group had said in a report in April that Bangladesh garment workers earned lower wages than any other major garment exporting country and rely on excessive overtime to survive.
Japan’s retail industry has struggled to capitalize on the increased demand from tourists, largely because of the labor shortage. Many clothing retailers are looking to hire staff who can speak Chinese, English and other languages as a way to capture the opportunity created by inbound tourists. For many, this involves not just training foreign staff to work on shop floor but also providing them thorough knowledge of their brands and operations.
Most of Japan's retailers typically hire foreigners to fill shortages on the shop floor, a symptom of the country’s shrinking working-age population. World Mode will spend several weeks training these workers on the finer points of Japanese-style customer service and the basics of the fashion industry, with the aim of sending them to stores operated by luxury brands and apparel companies.
The hope is that well-drilled, knowledgeable staff will be able to help raise the brand image of the stores that hire them. The company’s hope is that hires like these can encourage overseas tourists to become long-term online customers. This year, Fast Retailing hired about 20 foreign graduates with a view to placing them in managerial roles.
Foreign visitors to Japan in the first six months of this year increased 16 per cent from a year ago.
More than a third of all microplastics released into the oceans are from synthetic textiles used in the fashion industry, according to a new report. Each time an item of clothing is washed, up to 7,00,000 microscopic fibers make their way into oceans, where they are swallowed by sea life and become incorporated into the food chain, potentially ending up on dinner plates says a study by The Institution of Mechanical Engineers. Garment aftercare affects an item’s carbon footprint. A way out is for individuals to wash their clothes at a lower temperature, use mesh laundry bags to catch threads, rely on tumble dryers less often or install filters on washing machine waste pipes. Research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), cited in the report, calculated that 34.8 per cent of releases of microplastics in the oceans are due to the laundry of synthetic textiles.
Fashion is a thirsty industry, one that contributes significantly to water pollution globally. It also is energy-intensive, producing 1.2 billion tons of Co2 equivalent– more emissions than international flights and maritime shipping combined. Annual growth in global demand for clothing is projected to increase from 1.5 per cent in 2016 to between 3.5 and 4.5 per cent by the end of 2018 and is likely to continue to grow, according to McKinsey & Company released earlier this year..
Urgent action needs to be taken to tackle the waste produced over the lifecycle of an item of clothing. This includes addressing water-intensive processes during manufacturing, such as removing excess dyes, and tackling the problem of disposing of a garment at the end of its life. Three-fifths of all clothing produced is sent to landfill or incinerated within a year of being made.
The garment industry is one of many industries that has a threefold impact with emissions to air, water, and large amounts of waste produced for landfill and incineration.
A new type of reactor made of a textile material has found its way into the market in different parts of the world.The reactor transforms different kinds of waste into new products, such as biofuel. The textile reactor has been tested in different markets in the world and the technology has evolved along the way. India is the latest market where it has been tested. Swedish company F.O.V. has established a subsidiary that supplies reactors with volumes from five cubic meters to 300 cubic meters.
Approximately 30 reactors have been established and technical trials are being carried out. Textile reactors have been developed and established in several locations around the world to produce biogas on both small and large scales, ranging from a few cubic meters to 300 cubic meter large reactors. They are used so far mainly in agriculture.
The first prototype of the reactor was made in 2014. Over last few years, it was tested in several research projects. First, attempts were made to produce biogas with kitchen waste in the lab environment, then later with manure. The results were excellent.
Research on the textile reactor has now entered a new phase – to find new applications for it. In new projects, it is now being tested for the production of things other than biogas and bioethanol.
