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The sowing area under cotton is likely to decline by ten per cent to 12 per cent this year as farmers shift to other remunerative crops such as soybean and paddy to fetch better prices for their produce.
Cotton was heavily impacted by pink bollworm last year which farmers fear will spoil the crop this year as well. Secondly, prices remained subdued throughout last year, prompting farmers to look for an alternative crop. Other issues confronting farmers are a water shortage and unfavorable weather.
Farmers may shift from cotton to groundnut in Gujarat, paddy in Haryana and soybean in Maharashtra and the Telangana belt as cotton is still not remunerative compared to other options. Similarly soybean, pulses and sugarcane could surpass cotton in acreage as prices are firm and pest infestation in those crops is less.
Meanwhile, gains in cotton prices may be capped even as good quality seeds and an improved yield are not making much of an impact on crop output.
The decline in acreage may lower cotton output proportionately. India’s cotton output was estimated at 37.7 million bales in the first advanced estimate.
With monsoons forecast to be normal this year, kharif output is expected to be bumper this season.
Apparel exporters in Tirupur have been directed by customs to submit records of exports done by them since 2004.
Exporters, however, say records stretching that far back are not computerized.
Units in the district export apparels to various western countries. The goods are transited mostly through ports in Tuticorin, Kochi and Chennai and sometimes through airports in Coimbatore and Chennai. In order to encourage exports, duty drawback and other incentives were introduced at certain rates in accordance with the value of the exported goods. Exporters had to submit shipping bills in banks and obtain a Bill Realisation Certificate, which showed an exporter had received the payment as per the bill from a foreign buyer. Due to various reasons, the partial or full payment would not have happened.
Since 2014, the system has been automated. If exporters do not submit a BRC, or close the shipping bills within two years, they will be placed on a caution list. This data will be uploaded online by banks under the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS), and violators can even be stripped of their IE code. The measure was taken as exporters were found to have been involved in fraud to receive duty drawback.
Cotton yarn exports stood at $US 318mn in April, almost twice from that of same month last year.
Seventy-five countries imported yarn at an average price of US$3.20 a kg in the month.
China sharply increased its import by almost four times in volume and value terms and was top importer during the month. It was followed by Bangladesh with volume and value both rising by 45 per cent over the year. Portugal and Vietnam were the other major importers, also doubling their imports from India. Peru was the fifth largest destination.
Bulgaria, Indonesia, Hong Kong and USA were among the fastest importers of cotton yarn in April while Austria, Brazil and United Arab Emirates significantly reduced their import compared to last year.
Combed yarn export accounted for 63 per cent of total exports during April with China and Bangladesh being the major buyers followed by Portugal and Vietnam. Knit yarn accounted for more than half of total export value of cotton yarn.
In 2017, China supplied 33.3 per cent of the EU’s apparel and textile imports.China had a 34 per cent share of the EU’s clothing imports. Bangladesh ranked second, with a 17 per cent share. Turkey ranked third, with a 11.7 per cent share. India ranked fourth, while Pakistan came fifth.
The share of China, Bangladesh, and Turkey in EU clothing imports is 62.6 per cent.
Textile products, including yarn, fiber, fabric and home textiles, imported by the European Union countries from all over the world in 2017 increased by three per cent compared to the previous year.
EU’s imports of textile products from Turkey last year increased by 0.7 per cent compared to the previous year.
The third largest textile supplier to the EU is India. Approximately 1.3 billion euro worth of textile products were imported from India in 2017. The fourth largest textile supplier to the EU is South Korea.
The EU itself has a vibrant textile and clothing industry. It covers a wide range of activities like transferring raw fiber into yarns and then yarns into fabric and then finally using the fabric to produce a wide range of finished products such as wool, bed linen, geo-textiles, clothing, and synthetic yarns.
Mills in China will be allowed to enhance their cotton imports.
China, once the world’s top cotton importer, saw imports shrink from more than five million tons in 2011-12 to around a million tons last year, due to its efforts to reduce state stockpiles of the fiber.
Now, after several years of auctions to lower state stocks and with demand recovering, the market has become concerned about supplies.
China’s domestic cotton futures have rallied nearly 18 per cent since early April, fueled in part by worries over crop damage from heavy rains, as well as by heavy speculation.
It’s possible China’s move is related to pressure from the United States for higher imports of American farm goods.
Despite the move to boost imports, China says supplies are basically sufficient and that abnormal fluctuations in the current market are influenced by speculation and other factors.
China’s cotton output this year is expected to remain stable, with weather disasters about the same as in previous years. Bad weather came relatively early as well, reducing any impact on yield.
Commercial inventories are about 2.87 million tons at end-April, about a million tons higher than the same time last year.
While cotton demand has been steadily rising this year, there is limited room for growth.
The denim manufacturing industry in Britian is slowly gaining ground with many labels like Le Kilt, the Cooper Collection and King & Tuckfield designing and producing their jeans in London.
Although these jeans are currently made with imported Japanese or Turkish fabrics, the introduction of England’s first selvage fabric mill in Lancashire is likely to soon change that.
Made-in-Britain jeans share a certain directional and utilitarian aesthetic: The jeans are wide legged and sit high on the waist; outerwear is long line and more akin to workers' overalls than to classic denim jackets; and many of the pieces are unisex.
The denim manufacturing industry in London is still tiny. It took Ates three months to build a team of eight while Hewitt Heritage Fabrics, which produces selvage denim in Lancashire, was turned down by multiple mills that thought his project impossible.
Observing recent financial performance, Victoria’s Secret an intimate wear brand, is attempting to focus younger women as well as entice back former clients through focusing on its core categories like lingerie and apparel. Its new plan to attract younger women and to increase its sportswear, sleepwear and lounge wear collections is being seen as favourble to market trends.
Victoria’s Secret, has steadily been losing its market share the last couple of years with overtly sexy lingerie as well as panties that many females say are turnoffs. Consumers now favor garments that are a mix of athletic and leisure wear that are able to be worn both for lounging as well as exercising, and that category is continuing to be a growth source across the apparel market.
Earlier Pink and Bath and Body Works brands, under Victoria’s Secret, reported fall by 50 per cent in earnings for the first than the same period one year ago. Overall sales were up 8 per cent ending the three-month period at $2.62 billion. However, when looking at only Victoria’s Secret sales at same-stores, an important retail metric, a plunge of 14 per cent, took place, and the company cut its earnings forecast for 2018.
Located at number 68 of Calle Serrano, the most elegant street in the Spanish capital and home to the global luxury stores, the renovated Salvatore Ferragamo boutique is spread over two floors and covers an area of 321sq mt. It overlooks the street with two large bright windows.
The reopening of the Madrid boutique in its new location aims to consolidate the presence of Salvatore Ferragamo in the strategic and constant growing Spanish market. The brand has, in fact, been present in the country since 2000 with its first corner in El Cort Ingles in Marbella. In Spain, Ferragamo is also present with corners in El Corte Ingles of Madrid and Barcelona.
The next year sees the opening of the previous monobrand in Calle Serrano in Madrid.
The new Calle Serrano boutique stocks the men’s and women’s collections of the Florentine house, ready to wear, bags and shoes, small leather goods, leather and silk accessories, eyewear and fragrances. A section is also dedicated to the Ferragamo creations collection, the exclusive line of women’s shoes launching some of the most famous models in the brand’s history, a perfect marriage of creativity, design, craftsmanship and made in Italy style.
The power loom weaving sector won’t get refund of input tax credit (ITC). ITC refunds for other segments, including textile processing, embroidery and yarn spinning, will be released soon.
Input tax credit is a relief offered under GST.
The textile industry has sought refund of the accumulated input tax credit at the fabric stage. The view is that any delay in such refund could lead to increased imports of fabrics, resulting in job losses in highly vulnerable sectors like power looms, handlooms, and processing.
The textile industry fears costs could escalate by anywhere between three per cent and five per cent which could further impact capacity utilisation.
This percentage share in cost escalation is proportionate to the range of accumulation of input tax credit on the sales value.
Apart from avoiding cost escalation, a timely refund could also avert high imports of fabrics and fall in capacity utilization, which could result in job losses.
While the power loom sector and independent weaving units that produce over 95 per cent of the woven fabric are burdened with 18 per cent GST on yarn, vertically integrated units do not have this problem as they need to pay 18 per cent GST for fibers and only five per cent GST on fabrics and the cost difference works out to five to seven per cent.
New York City officials have hammered out a plan to end a decades-old zoning regulation that protects manufacturing space in Manhattan’s historic Garment District and replaces it with programs designed to keep some of the industry in Midtown.
The plan, which is expected to be announced soon, would achieve a major goal of the real-estate industry, which has long sought to end the zoning. Landlords have argued it preserves more space than declining garment-production businesses can fill.
Advocates of New York City’s fashion industry, who have battled to maintain the zoning, expressed support for much of the proposal, which was circulating behind the scenes recently. These proponents have argued that a vibrant Midtown presence remains critical to the local industry, which relies on a network of services that offer speed and efficiency. Advocates also recognize that foreign competition and other forces have caused the industry to hemorrhage tens of thousands of jobs, and they have been open to replacing the zoning with other programs.
The plan would preserve a garment-industry presence in Midtown partly by using up to 20 million dollars in city funds to acquire a building dedicated to manufacturers.
In the Garment District’s heyday, from the 1920s to the 1950s, it was one of the city’s largest employers, with hundreds of thousands of clothing manufacturing jobs.
