Manmade textile industry is on the cusp of turnaround with a revival in its demand in the last few weeks following producers’ ability to fix prices of their products in the wake of stabilising crude oil prices.

Sensing this opportunity, leading manmade fiber and yarn players have chalked out massive investment plans to expand their capacity and grab large share in the world market. Filatex India, for example, has envisaged Rs 275 crore (US$ 39.24 million) expansion plan to raise their production capacity of yarn and power to reduce its production cost and improve its EBIDTA margins for this year.

Trading at $85.10 a barrel in the world market, crude oil price gradually slipped to the level of $49.79 a barrel towards the end of December and gradually picked up again to trade currently at $65.05 a barrel. Most importantly, crude oil price is holding above $60 a barrel since February 1 which allowed synthetic yarn, fabric and textile manufacturers to fix their product prices for long term. Prices of synthetic yarn and fabric moved in tandem with crude oil prices, being the latter the sole raw material of the former.

US consumers of Levi’s will be able to go to Levi.com and design their own pair of jeans through the brand’s FLX technology.

Consumers will be able to start with seven of Levi’s most popular fits, including the 501. From those seven fits, using a variety of design combinations, they’ll be able to design over a thousand combinations of their own personalized jeans. Consumers can handpick their desired wash, the type of wear pattern, whether or not they want deconstruction and if so, where and what size. They can opt to over-dye their jeans in a myriad of colors like pink, black and green, and can choose from a select set of images and words to have etched on their jeans for further personalization. The jeans will be produced and shipped and delivered to consumers’ homes in a matter of days.

FLX technology is the company’s digitized finishing solution to streamline the process through eco-friendly lasers. With this, the company shifts its focus of providing a finished good to the consumer to providing a blank canvas. This eliminates the risk that comes with designing for long lead times and consumers’ ever-changing tastes and needs. This phase of customization is aimed at deepening consumers’ connection with the brand.

The UK retail sector’s share in employment is falling.
Retail’s share of employee jobs in the United Kingdom has fallen from 10.8 per cent in 2003 to 9.5 per cent now. The country now has a lower share of workers in wholesale and retail than Germany.

Retail’s shrinking share of the UK workforce which dates back to 2003 is equivalent to 3,20,000 missing employee jobs.

This steady employment share decline has been absorbed by a buoyant labor market. The absolute reduction in retail employee jobs has been small. at 28,000 since 2003, compared to a 7,50,000 fall in manufacturing employee jobs, and has been in the context of a three million overall increase in employment.

However, this long-term decline has taken a more worrying turn recently. Retail workers now have a higher rate of redundancies than any other sector. Those leaving retail are now also more likely to become unemployed than leavers from any other sector.

Ex-retail workers are also staying unemployed for longer than ex-workers from other sectors. And this increased unemployment risk has been most significant for younger workers, with three in five unemployed ex-retail workers aged under 30, despite barely a third of retail’s workforce being in this age bracket.

Bangladesh has awakened the interest of investors from Dubai.
The country seeks investments in skill development, human resource augmentation, power and energy sector capacity building, ICT, agro-processing and fisheries. Bangladesh wants to emerge as a hub for technological, trade, business and financial connectivity and is geared toward creating more fluidity in the business and investment sectors and streamlining bureaucratic hurdles.

The investors have sought longer visa approvals for business and support for acquiring land areas for developing industrial facilities. The business leaders also highlight the need for adopting better technology at comparatively lower cost profiles.

When it comes to investing in Bangladesh, there are complaints of bureaucratic hurdles – including the presumably lengthy renewal processes and the unavailability of smoother international payment systems – particularly in foreign exchange transactions.

Since the garment sector is growing very fast in Bangladesh, foreign investors choose the country as an investment destination in the textile sector. The available workforce at a reasonable wage, duty-free market access to major export destination, preferential location in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region and policy support have acted as a catalyst to attract foreign investment in the textile and apparel industry.

Bangladesh is seeking FDI from Singapore, India, Japan, China, Thailand and other countries.

As revealed in the latest Conference Board Global Consumer Confidence Survey, global consumer confidence in India is at peak. The survey, conducted in collaboration with Nielsen, polls more than 32,000 consumers in 64 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and North America.

India had a Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) score of 133 in the fourth quarter of 2018 edging past the Philippines (131) and Indonesia (127). India maintained its number one position from the third quarter when it scored 130 on the index whereas Philippines and Indonesia were joint fourth in Q3 of 2018 with an identical score of 126.

South Korea has the most pessimistic consumers in the world. People there are worried about rising inflation, lower wage growth, a weak stock market, unemployment and global trade uncertainties.

Meanwhile, the Global Consumer Confidence Index increased one point to 107 in fourth quarter of 2018, the highest in 14 years.

The main indicators measured by Conference Board CCI are optimism towards job prospects, health of personal finances and spending intentions in the next 12 months.

In its first year of participation at the Yarn Expo Autumn 2018, Novetex has brought eye-catching booth decorations to the fair.

Novotex has been in business for 50 years, starting in Hong Kong with our spinning machines, and eventually moving to Macau and then China. The company is known for its spinning yarns, and every year it researches and develops new colors and qualities.

The US decision to withdraw GSP benefits will not have a significant impact on Indian exports to America.
India mainly exports raw materials and intermediate goods such as organic chemicals to the US.

The US decided to end the preferential trade status granted to India under the justification that India failed to assure America of equitable and reasonable access to its markets. Apparently the US is also unhappy with the recent tightening of foreign direct investment rules on e-commerce.

Removing India from the GSP program would not take effect for at least 60 days after notifications to Congress and the Indian government, and it will be enacted by a presidential proclamation. As many as 1,900 Indian products from sectors such as chemicals and engineering get duty free access to the US market under the GSP introduced in 1976.

India is the largest beneficiary of the United States’ GSP scheme, which is devised to promote exports of developing countries and which allows duty-free access to about 3,500 products.

Continuation of GSP benefits in fact is expected to help boost the competitiveness of American manufacturers too by lowering their costs. About two thirds of US imports under GSP are raw materials, components, or machinery and equipment used for manufacturing goods for domestic consumption or for exports.

Grasim India is buying Soktas India. This is currently a wholly-owned subsidiary of Soktas, based in Turkey, a producer and marketer of fabrics. At present, Soktas is in the business of manufacturing and distribution of premium cotton fabrics with its manufacturing facility in Maharashtra. The company posted a revenue and ebitda of Rs 186 crores(US$26.54million) and Rs 31 crores(US$4.42million) , respectively, for the fiscal ended March 2018. It sells premium fabrics in India under the Soktas, Giza House and Excellence by Soktas brands. The company is also a supplier to leading Indian and global menswear brands.

The acquisition is in line with Grasim’s business strategy to strengthen its presence in the premium fabric market. Grasim’s aim is to strengthen its leadership in the premium cotton and linen fabric market in India. Increasing disposable income, fashion and quality orientation of Indian consumers has resulted in an increase in the demand for premium fabric over the years. The company is known for its fabric brand Liva introduced in 2015.

Grasim, a part of Aditya Birla, is the world’s fourth largest pulp producer and one of India’s largest viscose staple fiber (VSF) producers. In India, the demand growth for VSF at eight per cent is higher than global demand growth.

Coats Global Services (CGS), received phenomenal response to its first series of Apparel Tech Up in Bangladesh . The event was held on February 26 and 28, 2019 in Dhaka and Chittagong respectively. It was attended by over 100+ top level stakeholders of the Bangladesh RMG industry. The seminar centered around the concept of data being the key for business success.

The event began with a note by David Berry, Director – Sales &Marketing for GSD, a part of CGS. He talked about the vision of CGS for the upcoming year. He elaborated on the intent of CGS to be a complete end to end manufacturing supply excellence solution provider. This was followed by a talk by Terry Broderick, global manufacturing & tech services leader, Kiabi. He talked about Kiabi’s perspective towards industry 4.0 and its 5 year growth strategy.

The event concluded with a panel discussion between Manasij Ganguli (CGS), Tram Anh Tran(Coats),. Mithu (Epyllion), Terry Broderick (Kiabi) and Dave Berry (CGS) to discuss the current challenges and opportunities for RMG manufacturer in terms of data.

E-commerce has revolutionised the retail sector in India and will play a major role in the country’s growth story going forward.
Driven by the growth in India’s retail market, the country’s GDP will also witness an increase and result in more job opportunities.

India is currently growing at over seven per cent and if the country has to grow at nine per cent then the e-commerce market will have to play a major role.

Traditional retail market and modern retail market (e-commerce) will co-exist in India even as consumer behavior is changing.

Given the strong retail and consumer outlook, India is expected to witness redefining trends in the consumer market which will shape the future of the retail industry. Further, as the internet penetration in the country increases and more international retailers start operating in India, the share of the organised retail market is expected to increase from 12 per cent in 2017 to about 25 per cent by 2021.

This will also be driven by the growth of the e-commerce market from 24 billion dollars in 2017 to 84 billion dollars in 2021. Increasing online shopping, smart phone use and internet penetration across semi-urban and rural segments would also help boost sales.