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Asean countries will persuade India to return to the negotiating table for the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade deal. India pulled out of the RCEP fearing a negative impact on its industries including textiles. It was felt that signing the RCEP would be a big setback for the Indian manmade fiber textile industry. The apprehension being felt by many industrial sectors and farmers on a possible flooding of the market with cheap imports once import duties on goods from China are pared was another reason. The current position of the Indian textile industry is not healthy.
Negotiations for the RCEP, which started in 2012, have targeted strengthening economic co-operation among the ten Asean members along with China, Japan, Korea, Australia, India and New Zealand. The RCEP is home to 30 per cent of the world’s population and 29 per cent of the world’s GDP. The initiative aims at being an Asean-led process through which Asean would broaden and deepen its economic engagements with its FTA partners. The RCEP is envisioned to lead to greater economic integration, support equitable economic development and strengthen economic cooperation among the countries involved.
Despite India’s withdrawal, the RCEP would still be a big free trade that sets a common trade rule.
The Philippines is planning to revive its textile and garment industries. Among other things, the plan is to put an end to the proliferation of used-clothing imports from North America and Europe that compete with domestic suppliers. Other strategies include better integrating the garment and textile sectors, earmarking capital and land to increase production, encouraging the purchase of new equipment, providing fiscal incentives to manufacturers through lower value-added taxes and reduced power rates, tackling infrastructure gaps and logistical bottlenecks, investing in product development and marketing, incorporating loom weaving into the school curriculum and cleaning up the textile value chain by requiring the registration of chemicals and substances. The corporate tax rate will be lowered from 30 per cent to 20 per cent over the next ten years.
The aim is to position the Philippines as one of the top 10 global garment and textile exporters with an annual export growth of 45 per cent. Garment export earnings are expected to be flat this year. At present, almost all its apparel production are halted due to delayed deliveries of raw materials from China, Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries. The Philippines has no local source or back-up industries as every fabric, textile and accessory item is imported.
Pakistan plans to remove duties on many raw materials used by exporters. The aim is to make them more regionally competitive and help the economy escape a recurring boom-bust cycle. Discounted energy will be supplied to export-based factories. The devaluation and import duty cuts have improved Pakistan’s competitiveness, with exports expected to rise this fiscal year. More than half of Pakistan’s exports are textiles, with the industry now operating near maximum capacity.
Pakistan’s economic growth is seen decelerating to 2.4 per cent in the year through June, its weakest pace in more than a decade. Consumption growth slowed and investment contracted last fiscal year. To contain the damage from soaring deficits, Pakistan has devalued its currency by half over the past two years. Shipments from the South Asian nation have been largely stagnant over the past decade, a time when other developing economies like Vietnam and Bangladesh have seen their export sectors thrive. The European Union, which takes about one-third of Pakistan’s exports, has extended favorable access to its markets for two more years. Pakistan’s exports to Europe grew by 30 per cent in the two years after it received favorable access in 2014, but the pace has slowed since.
Huntsman Textile Effects has introduced a wash fast disperse dye. Terasil Blue W is designed to meet all major requirements for high performance sportswear and athleisure wear and leads to savings of water, energy and costs for mills. This dye is not sensitive to reduction. This leads to higher reproducibility, right first-time results and operational excellence. With cutting-edge disperse dye technology at its heart, Terasil Blue W has been developed by Huntsman Textile Effects to provide the leading solution for meeting the industry’s wash fastness requirements. Terasil Blue W offers an attractive shade and a high build-up for deep blues, which stay vibrant. The Terasil Blue W breakthrough technology raises the benchmark of wash fastness in the industry, helping mills overcome the challenges of dyeing polyester and its blends, while achieving production efficiency and sustainability.
Huntsman Textile Effects is the leading global provider of high-quality dyes, chemicals and digital inks to the textile and related industries. Huntsman is committed to an environmentally and economically sustainable textile value chain through its range of high-performance products. The demand for polyester and manmade fibers is booming as sports and athleisure apparel markets expand rapidly around the world. At the same time, brands, consumers and mills are increasingly focused on sustainability and performance resulting in raising demand for optimization of the costly, time consuming and resource intensive polyester dyeing process.
Oil price fluctuations affect all links of fashion’s value chain: fibers, transportation and consumption. The fashion sector depends on oil throughout its value chain. Logistics is one of the links of fashion’s value chain that’s dependent on oil. Fashion globalization, both in its sourcing and its distribution, forces the sector to build a transportation network by land, sea and air. In fact, most fashion exports move by boat, where petrol is the main fuel.
If the oil price war continues, one of the direct repercussions will be on the price of textile fibers derived from it, such as polyester, one of the most used fashion raw materials, or nylon, also derived from black gold. Polyester production has been increasing in recent years. Its production tripled between 2000 and 2017. Nylon production has also increased although its use in fashion is more residual.
The collapse of petrol is the result of a decision by Saudi Arabia, the greatest producer of crude oil in the world, to offer its oil at massive discounts. Price war in the oil market will also have a potential impact on the consumer’s spending power. The forecast for the oil market is even more pessimistic than in November 2014, when a similar price war began, as it adds to the significant collapse of oil demand due to the coronavirus.
Baldwin has launched a non-contact precision spray fabric finishing system. With extensive sustainability benefits, unprecedented tracking and process control, and industry 4.0 integration, TexCoat G4 provides consistently high-quality fabric finishing, with no chemistry waste, as well as minimal water and energy consumption. The innovative non-contact spray technology eliminates chemistry dilution in wet-on-wet processes. TexCoat G4 consistently and uniformly sprays chemistry across the fabric surface and applies it only where needed, on one or both sides of the fabric. Customers can expect no bath contamination during the finishing process, as well as minimal downtime during changeovers, which are made easy with recipe management that includes automated chemistry and coverage selection.
TexCoat G4 also enhances sustainability by wasting no chemistry during color, fabric, or chemistry changeovers, and because only the required chemistry volume is applied to the fabric, wet pick-up levels can be reduced by up to 50 per cent, leading to 50 per cent less water and energy consumption. Furthermore, in single-side applications, drying steps can be eliminated for various textiles, including those that are back-coated and laminated, thereby streamlining and simplifying the production process.
Baldwin is a manufacturer of innovative process-automation equipment and consumables for the printing, packaging, textile, plastic film extrusion, and corrugated industries.
Bangladesh and India have emerged as the biggest beneficiaries in kidswear export to USA in January 2020. As recent reports by OTEXA reveal, USA imported US $ 237.14 million worth kidswear in January and grew by 1.23 per cent on Y-o-Y basis. India massively surged by 27.17 per cent in its kidswear exports to USA, while Bangladesh grew by a huge 44.76 per cent.
India shipped kidswear worth US $ 33.59 million to USA in January 2020 as against US $ 26.41 million worth of shipment in January 2019. On the other hand, Bangladesh escalated its kidswear export to US $ 30.05 million from US $ 20.76 million a year earlier.
Vietnam shipped kidswear to USA worth US $ 31.32 million during the same time, which is 10.19 per cent higher than January 2019. Seeing the data, it’s clear that India surpassed the export value of Vietnam in kidswear export, while Bangladesh almost narrowed the gap with this 2nd top RMG exporter to USA. Indonesia also steered its kidswear export to USA in January which was down till December by 20.78 per cent. Revenue that Indonesia earned in this category was US $ 9.72 per cent, growing at 12.93 per cent rate on Y-o-Y basis.
China dipped enormously by 43.68 per cent due to Coronavirus outbreak in January as it declared lockdown in most of the provinces which prevented Chinese factories to achieve on-time shipment. China could export kidswear to USA just worth US $ 56.53 million in the first month of 2020 as compared to US $ 100.37 million in the same month of 2019.
For the fourth quarter American Eagle Outfitters’ revenue increased by six per cent. Comparable sales decreased three per cent in the quarter compared to a three per cent increase last year. Gross profit decreased five per cent in the quarter compared to the same quarter prior year. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased slightly.
For the full year, revenue grew seven per cent. American Eagle comparable sales were up slightly compared to a five per cent increase last year. Gross profit in the year increased two per cent. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased five per cent. Operating income decreased from last year.
American Eagle Outfitters is a specialty retailer offering on-trend clothing and personal care products. Though the company faced some challenges in 2019, it made good progress on its strategic growth pillars, posting record revenues. It saw strong customer engagement and positive traffic across brands and channels. American Eagle saw growth in its signature jeans and bottoms categories. Looking ahead, the company is focused on areas of underperformance and strengthening profit margins. Product improvements, inventory management and gaining efficiencies are top priorities. Its healthy brands and strong balance sheet position it well to compete in today’s market.
For years, Coats has had a robust approach to sustainability and 2019 saw progress made in the first year of its new strategy. Coats has set ambitious goals to deliver by 2022 as it continues pioneering toward a more sustainable future. Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread company. It enters 2020 as a lean and agile organisation, having delivered significant positive strategic change through 2019. This was a year of continued growth in profits and cash, despite a market backdrop which saw lower than normal growth in retail sales of apparel and footwear, and temporary softness in some of the industrial end-markets. In apparel and footwear, this meant taking a bigger market share by delivering high quality products with world class levels of speed, customer service and support. However growth was impacted by slower demand for zips and trims due to certain in-year fashion trends and conscious low margin product rationalization as well as the impact of tail market exits and other customer/product portfolio rationalisation actions. Coats is well placed to take advantage of the fast-paced and rapidly changing modern world by capturing the many opportunities. In Bangladesh Coats is the first company which offers garment factories recycled thread. The company uses plastic bottles to make chips, which are then converted into plastic threads.
Adidas saw its business in the greater China area drop by about 85 per cent year on year in the period since Chinese New Year. The German sportswear maker expects first-quarter sales to drop significantly in greater China due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). China accounts for 20 per cent of Adidas’ sales. The brand sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most of them franchises, about 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in China. But now, Adidas has cancelled all shipments to wholesale partners in China and plans to clear excess inventory through its own channels during the rest of the year.
Adidas has forecasted currency-neutral sales to increase by between six per cent and eight per cent for the full year and for its operating margin to rise by between 10.5 per cent and 11.8 per cent. It remains fully confident about its future growth prospects due to its strong positioning in an attractive industry despite the temporary challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
Fourth-quarter sales rose a currency-adjusted ten per cent. Currency-neutral sales grew 18 per cent in greater China, ten per cent in North America and 14 per cent in Europe.
