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Karl Mayer, the market leader and driving force in textile machinery, will make a double presence at ITMA ASIA + CITME at the National Exhibition and Convention Centre in Shanghai from October 21 to 25 and simultaneously at an in-house exhibition at Karl Mayer (China) in Wujin.
ITMA ASIA + CITME 2016 is the most important trade fair for the Asia’s textile industry. With intervals between the events, this leading trade fair determines the innovation cycles within the sector. The technology and market leader offers perfect solutions for warp knitting, technical textiles and warp preparation for weaving and will be one of the top addresses for visitors of the fair.
Visitors can look forward to viewing a wide range of exhibits. In the lace sector, a fundamental new development in the multibar jacquard machine sector will set the standard in terms of the cost: benefit ratio and will be demonstrating the potential for producing a wide range of new and different product designs.
In the tricot sector, textile machine manufacturer continues the generation change that has been initiated at ITMA 2015 in Milan. There is high demand for the first model to feature the upgrade, the HKS 2-SE, with a modern machine design, KARL MAYER’s new KAMCOS® 2 platform with additional App functions, camera monitoring system and the LEO® Low Energy Option for up to 10 % less energy consumption, reducing costs and environmental loads. HKS machines with EL provide simple and rapid pattern change for producing short runs and development of new products. An almost limitless range of long pattern repeats, and consequently pattern designs, can be produced.
Last but not the least, the warping machine that can be used for conventional direct warping as well as sectional warping will be shown. The warp-for-warp technique requires only a few packages. Karl Mayer’ Warp Preparation Business Unit will be showcasing an innovative sectional warping machine for processing shirtings and cloths. This machine operates at an impressive level of productivity. It improves efficiency in weaving preparation by up to 30 per cent and by up to 3 per cent in weaving compared to other models on the market. The company will also be showing the innovation Size Box HSB with pre-wetting and the technical textiles business unit will focus on lightweight construction and geo textiles.
Claudia Vicary is the new graduate policy officer for Cotton Australia. She will contribute to the development of the organisation’s policy positions that protect and advance the interests of cotton growers. She has extensive professional and personal experience in agriculture. She has skills in cotton and horticultural integrated pest management, field research and international agricultural development.
Claudia Vicary will work closely with Cotton Australia’s team of policy and advocacy staff and the broader team to advance issues important to cotton growers. Cotton Australia is the peak body for Australia's cotton growing industry and aims to foster a sustainable Australian cotton industry. There are more than 1,200 cotton farms in Australia. In an average year, Australia’s cotton growers produce enough cotton to clothe 500 million people. The major buyers of Australian cotton are China, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Bangladesh and Japan.
Cotton is one of Australia’s largest rural export earners and helps underpin the viability of more than 152 rural communities. Cotton makes up 30 to 60 per cent of the gross value of the total agricultural production in Australian regions where it is grown. The cotton industry in Australia employs 15 times as many people as grazing does. Australian irrigated lint yields are now the highest of any major cotton producing country in the world.
"The Indian textile and apparels industry employs 105 million people directly and indirectly and has a potential to create 50 million more jobs by 2025, holding the key to growing unrest over India's inability to create the millions of jobs it needs every month. However, due to rising skills gap, falling exports, low productivity, ever increasing debt and low foreign investment the targets set by the textile sector of additional $30 billion in exports and 10 million additional jobs over the next three years is being jeopardised."
The Indian textile and apparels industry employs 105 million people directly and indirectly and has a potential to create 50 million more jobs by 2025, holding the key to growing unrest over India's inability to create the millions of jobs it needs every month. However, due to rising skills gap, falling exports, low productivity, ever increasing debt and low foreign investment the targets set by the textile sector of additional $30 billion in exports and 10 million additional jobs over the next three years is being jeopardised.
In fact, as per Labour Bureau estimates, textiles and apparels employment fell 0.11 per cent in April-June 2015, rose 0.18 per cent in July-September 2015 and 0.23 per cent in October-December 2015; and exports of cotton commodities, which account for 24 per cent of textile and apparel exports, declined 34 per cent in the last three years. As per United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database exports of some commodities, such as knitted /crocheted and non-knitted/crocheted apparel and clothing, grew 12 per cent and seven per cent, textile & apparel exports from India declined more than seven per cent between 2013-14 and 2015-16.
Key to India's job aspirations
The textiles sector has been instrumental in creating mass employment, particularly for women, and has lifted millions out of poverty as they moved out of farm jobs in countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia, Mauritius, Cambodia and Pakistan. Textiles were the largest creator of Indian formal sector jobs, with 499,000 added over the last three years. There is strong international evidence that exports help create additional jobs and push up wage and income growth.
According to a United Nations Development Program report, over 22 years of unprecedented economic growth (1991 to 2013), less than half the Indians who sought jobs, 140 million of 300 million, got them. India will need to generate 280 million jobs between now and 2050, the year when the working-age population (15 to 64) will peak, the report said. However, the rate of employment in the textiles sector is moving south. One main reason is cotton, which commands the highest share (24 per cent) of textiles and apparels exports, witnessed 11 per cent decline in production over the last two financial years.
Experts cite crop damages in Punjab and Haryana and low rainfall in Gujarat and Maharashtra as the reason for the low annual cotton output in five years. This will potentially increase prices, making Indian textile products uncompetitive, at a time when India's exports are facing competition from Bangladesh, Vietnam and China. From a 43 per cent and 87 per cent lead over Bangladesh and Vietnam in textile and apparel exports in 2013-14, India's lead has now declined to 16 per cent and 28 per cent in 2015-16. Meanwhile Vietnam is now part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade block and so enjoys preferential trade access to the US, the world's largest importing country with 19 per cent share of global textile and clothing imports.
Urgent steps needed
As Smriti Irani at the helm she has her hands full as there is much for the textile ministry to do. Among them are: evaluate, bolster or scrap multiple government schemes that do not appear to have boosted productivity and skills in the industry. Some of these programs include the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme and Integrated Skill Development Scheme. According to a National Skill Development Corporation report, lack of skills in the textiles sector pervades levels like workers (operators, weavers, tailors et al), supervisors, managers, quality control representatives, merchandisers and designers/developers.
FDI, a driver of productivity, modernisation and skill development, in textiles more than doubled in 2013-14 over the preceding year, but investment growth stagnated in 2014-15 as, no more than 0.64 per cent of FDI into India went to textiles.
Africa’s biggest cotton producer Burkina Faso has asked Bayer Crop Science to help produce genetically modified cotton even as the government decided to stop planting a variety introduced by Monsanto Co., the world’s largest seed company. Burkina Faso will only grow conventional cotton this season but doesn’t rule out a return to genetically modified cotton, according to Wilfried Yameogo, managing director of state-controlled Sofitex, the largest buyer in the West African nation.
In April, Burkina Faso said it was completely phasing out Monsanto’s cotton because the length of the fiber degraded, which hurt revenue for three consecutive seasons. But if Monsanto can restore the quality of the crop, the government will tell farmers to resume planting genetically modified cotton, said Yameogo, who was appointed the same month.
Burkina Faso’s request to Bayer CropScience, the agricultural unit of German chemicals company Bayer AG, is ‘under consideration,’ company spokesman Richard Breum said. Meanwhile, the cotton industry continues to negotiate for compensation it seeks from Monsanto, as buyers and producers estimate they’ve lost $82 million during the past three seasons.
Mothercare, the global retailer for parents and young children, is constantly increasing its sourcing from India. Best Corporation from Tirupur, is one of the leading suppliers of the company. Best has been working with Mothercare for the last 17 years. Every year Mothercare increases sourcing from Best by 20 per cent. Among from Tirupur, Mothercare has suppliers in Delhi and Bangalore.
Mothercare sources from approximately 500 factories around the world. China, India, Turkey, Bangladesh and the UK account for 89 per cent of its production sites.
Mothercare is a 50 year old British brand. It is the leading specialist retailer of products for mothers-to-be, babies and children. Mothercare offers a wide range of maternity and children’s clothing, prams, push chairs, furniture and home furnishings, bedding, feeding, bathing, travel equipment and toys. It is the worldwide category leader in fashion products for newborn, babies and toddlers. It is present in over 56 countries with more than 55 franchise partners. There are more than 1500 stores worldwide with more than 100 stores in India. Nearly 40 per cent of its UK stores have now been revamped.
Mothercare designs and develops new products to meet customers’ needs and provides services, help and advice across the whole range of issues that parents face.
As per Cotton Council International (CCI) president Keith T Lucas, the US wants to double its cotton exports to Bangladesh over the next five years. Lucas says this is possible as Bangladesh is the number one importer of cotton now. Currently, the US exports 160,000 bales of cotton in a year to some Bangladeshi spinning mills, which is only 3 per cent of the total consumption of cotton by the country in a year, according to Bruce A Atherley, executive director of CCI, the export arm of National Cotton Council of America. Atherley and Lucas were in Dhaka recently to attend a seminar on cotton.
Atherley said that if Bangladesh’s garment exports increase at the targeted rate of 12 per cent, the country’s cotton consumption will increase by 10 per cent. Cotton consumption in Bangladesh has been increasing because almost all globally renowned apparel retailers like H&M, Zara and Walmart purchase garment items from here in bulk, he said. With higher demand for garment items from international retailers, the backward linkage industries like spinning, dyeing, finishing, weaving and printing industries have developed lots in Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, local spinners can meet 90 per cent of the demand for raw materials by the knitwear sector and the weavers can supply 40 per cent of the demand for woven sector, according to industry insiders.
Invista, promoters of the Lycra brand and one of the world’s largest integrated producers of polymers and fibers, will begin rolling out of next generation of Lycra Sport Technology at the Outdoor Retailer Summer Market in Salt Lake City, Utah, August 3-6, 2016.
This ‘next generation’ Lycra Sport Technology is scientifically engineered to deliver exceptional comfort, fit and support to stretch activewear. The new platform combines the proven stretch technology of Lycra fiber with demanding testing standards that measure fabric performance descriptors on a simplified 1-10 scale of three indexes.
The overall index approach to Lycra Sport Technology covers the broad spectrum of fabrics, helping to assure comfort from soft control, yoga-type applications to high compression applications such as running and cycling. Lycra Sport Technology can also be combined with other Lycra brand technologies, like Lycra Black Technology, to offer additional performance benefits for enhanced consumer value.
The new Lycra Sport platform also offers mills a simplified fabric certification process, enabling clients to access hang tags and other promotional materials. Lycra brand hangtags are designed to drive sales by clearly communicating fabric benefits and the quality assurance the Lycra brand name offers consumers.
A swimwear and lingerie show was held in Miami from July 16 to 19. The show had a strong participation of premium beachwear and accessories brands and Brazilian brands. Beachwear fashion companies closed deals worth $3, 72,000 with forecast sales of two million dollars for the next 12 months. Adriana Degreas, which is one of the leading luxury beachwear representatives in Brazil and a favorite with celebrities, presented its summer 2017 collection at the trade show.
For Sauipe Swimwear, the participation in the trade show turned to be very positive. The results were better than it originally expected. Existing customers returned and placed bigger orders, and the brand opened new accounts. This year, Sauipe structured the collection more efficiently, which promoted better sales and resulted in a more impacting presentation of the clothing. Sauipe managed to make better quality contacts with relevant stores for the company’s items on the market.
Another Brazilian company, Despi, saw the trade show as the best opportunity to showcase the collection effectively to a large number of potential buyers. It had a high level of attendance among customers, who have been buying from it each year, and it signed other new business deals.
Spinning units of Indore, region are shifting to man-made or blended fibers, unable to pass on the price rise of cotton to customers due to lackluster market. Shift of spinners from 100 per cent cotton to polyester and viscose is likely to help them restore margins and profit and rule out the option for a production cut.
These spinning units have been blending cotton with polyester and viscose after cotton prices rose steeply due to restricted supply and lower output. Spot cotton prices in local market have risen to over Rs 129 per kg from Rs 98 per kg in April, according to local traders.
There are about 40 spinning units in MP and the units with the capacity of 1 lakh spindles requires around 450-500 bales of cotton per day. Cotton production in 2015-16 (crop year October- September) fell to 352 lakh bales (170 kg each) compared to 380 lakh bales in the previous year.
Viscose Staple Fiber (VSF) based apparel exports have grown at a compounded annual growth rate of 27 per cent during financial year 2014 to 2016. Supply of cotton has squeezed in the local markets further pushing the prices while the arrival from the new crop is expected only by October. According to industry players, cotton prices are unlikely to come down before the month of October.
Textured Jersey Lanka’s well diversified business with big clients in the United States has helped it weather the downturn in European demand. TJL is a Sri Lankan fabric manufacturer. It managed to reduce energy costs to help counter eroding competitiveness against other origins with cheaper labor and power costs.
The company’s commissioning of its own coal power plant has helped reduce energy costs. Other initiatives to enhance profitability in the near term include continuous focus on enhancing efficiencies and increasing value addition to products to offer more customised solutions. TJL expects its focus on technology and expansion as a regional player to be key solutions to meet rising labor costs, in order to sustain growth in the near to medium term future.
Sri Lanka’s reputation and track record as an investment friendly destination, and as a manufacturer for a large number of the world’s leading apparel brands, continue to make it an attractive destination for inflows of new investments by overseas apparel manufacturers. But the country’s high labor and energy costs continue to be a challenge which dampens its cost competitiveness for all manufacturing industries. Its global competitiveness as a manufacturing destination is being challenged with the opening up of new destinations such as on the African continent, and some South Asian and East Asian nations which enjoy lower costs of production.
