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Yiwu will be held in China from November 30 to December 3, 2015. This is an event for knitting and apparel industry. It provides a stage for international textile enterprises to search and experience the most advanced and comprehensive automatic knitting, garment-making, dyeing and finishing machinery.
The exhibition embeds several theme zones covering knitting and hosiery machinery, sewing and automatic garment machinery, and dyeing and finishing machinery and is a one-stop sourcing platform for knitting and clothing industries. It aims to provide better services to new and recurring exhibitors and buyers. This year, the themes are green and sustainable production, automation and transformation of the textile industry.
Finishing and printing machinery will be showcased by Cubotex, Flainox and Kornit Digital. Bullmer, New Jack and Shing Ray will demonstrate their sewing and garment machinery. Gold Fai, Jingda and Jiasheng will display their braiding and zipper making and logo printing machinery.
Santoni, Lonati Spa and Aurora will present their knitting and hosiery machinery. High end knitting spare parts and knitting needles will be presented by companies like Yamagen, Yantex, and more. Warp knitting and yarn manufacturing machinery will be on display at the stands of Chemtax and Zhejiang Yuejian.
www.yiwuen.com/yiwu-market
A grant of Rs 30 crores allotted under the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY) for promoting cotton cultivation in Punjab was reportedly diverted for purchasing a chemical solution against the attack of white fly insect on the fiber crop. But there are protests that the insecticide purchased by the state agriculture department is costly, spurious, and ineffective against white fly. The main charge is that the Punjab government had diverted 64.7 per cent of the RKVY funds, while its Andhra Pradesh counterpart had used 98.5 per cent of the grant for the mandated purpose.
The opposition wants an official investigation into the supply of spurious pesticides. It wants issues facing growers of cotton, potato, sugarcane, and other crops to be addressed without delay. The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana was introduced in India’s eleventh five year plan. This was in 2007.
The scheme envisaged a four percentage yearly growth in agriculture and related divisions. It looks to offer states and union territories the independence to draw plans for developing agriculture through a knowledge of local conditions, geographical and weather patterns, obtainable natural assets, technology, cropping models. It offers guidance on boosting the yield of agriculture and related sectors and ultimately maximising profits of farmers.
For the second quarter of 2015, Kordsa Global has had a 11.4 per cent increase in total sales compared to the previous quarter. Kordsa is an industrial yarn and cord fabric producer. Sales are expected to increase in the range of 10 to 20 per cent and EBITDA 25 to 35 per cent.
Despite the vulnerable course in money markets, Kordsa Global, which makes 77 per cent of its sales in dollars and 23 per cent in euro, benefited from the situation and performed better than it had targeted. The company has invested in a composite technology center, which will become operational in 2016. This investment will lend it the capacity to produce advanced composite material technologies that transform many sectors from aviation to automotives.
With its strong technical infrastructure, long-term customer relations, and balanced portfolio in various geographies owing to its global structure, Kordsa Global is reaping the fruits of the wealth of experience it has accumulated in 42 years. Kordsa has reinforced its presence in the Asian market with a plant in Indonesia that was commissioned at the beginning of 2015. With its new-generation yarn production capability, it’s planning to make full use of this additional 18 kiloton capacity gradually in three years.
www.kordsaglobal.com/
The latest official statistics state reveal in the seven months leading up to August, Vietnam’s textile industry has attracted inward foreign direct investment (FDI) and continues to do so. Out of the estimated $5.85 billion pledged investment for the January-July period, at least $1.12 billion was designated for manufacturing and processing projects in the textile industry.
Foreign-invested transnational companies, particularly those related to yarn manufacturing, are rushing to shore up their supply chains in anticipation of free trade agreements in the offing, say experts. Reduced tariffs of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) do not allow Vietnam-based textile, garment or footwear manufacturers because of the yarn forward rules of origin. It would benefit Vietnam only if all yarn is manufactured in Vietnam or another of the 11 other TPP nations.
Other free trade agreements also fall under such provisions and the experts suggest that the complex rules of origin provisions are driving higher levels of inward FDI into the yarn industry in the country. Thus, if yarn from China was imported by a Vietnam based textile company, it could not avail itself of reduced tariffs for product shipments to the US or any of the other TPP member nations.
Once the TPP is fully implemented, Vietnam based manufacturers would enjoy tariff free exports when exporting textile and garment to other TPP member nations in lieu of the current 17-30 per cent tariff, subject to the rules of origin limits, as per the Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association (VITAA).
In Australia’s New South Wales, Southern Cotton’s inning business is a thriving $26 million-a-year business, a contrast from four years ago, when it was hardly anything, but had tremendous potential. The business is also the latest winner of the Regional Award at the 2015 Telstra Australian Business Awards. It won the award for its innovative use of technology and business sense. Fed up with the 800 km round trip to gin their cotton, the business is the brainchild of six grower friends who built their own facility. Directors Tim and Roger Commins, Gerard and John Toscan, Scott Hogan and Larry Walsh established Southern Cotton in 2011.
Nearly 100 local growers use Southern Cotton’s Whitton-based gin today considered a main driver of the region’s rebirth as a cotton-processing centre, serving more than 35,000ha of cotton crops. The facility has a state-of-the-art Radio Frequency Identification tracking system, which gives growers data from the paddock to the finished bale via smartphone or tablet—earning the business Telstra’s appreciation.
Southern Cotton is the only gins in the world to use the technology that captures, stores, and retrieves data on each cotton module to help growers learn more about their crop and help them in farm management decisions.
Besides, cotton-ginning, Southern Cotton, with 50,000 tonnes of cottonseed byproduct processed for livestock feed and cotton seed oil has developed new market opportunities. LPG gas is replaced by stalks, leaves and lint leftover, which are used after processing local cotton, to both power the gin. This produces a high-carbon by¬product that farmers can use to restore soil fertility and carbon content.
The decades old misconception that the LGBT community is not into sports has been busted. The community loves to play, talk about and watch sports. The community also actively supports local professional teams. As LGBT community nights are being organised everywhere—at colleges, minor league and major league sports games, sports apparel is now emerging to support the LGBT community, similar to other community nights that recognise military and children’s charities among others.
Yet, acquiring the necessary licensing to produce sports clothing related to teams can be tricky as everything needs to be checked off. This has to be done before items are produced by approved apparel companies. Located in Westwood, Massachusetts, ’47, is a company that sees a huge opportunity and market for licensed sports merchandise. The company is a licensed partner with the National Hockey League, Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and more than 650 colleges.
The company is one year into testing the market for the response on the niche market, LGBT sports apparel. Brian Maurer, a sales representative for ’47 said that the company was still in a nascent stage where the LGBT line of apparel was concerned. They started on a small scale and until now have only produced caps and shirts, he added.
Major League Baseball was the firs that ’47 reached out to and the league first approved apparel for the Boston Red Sox, San Francisco Giants and the New York Yankees. The popular Night OUT Series of Washington, DC hosted by Team DC with LGBT community nights is held annually with professional sports teams such as the DC United, Washington Nationals, Washington Kastles Washington Mystics, and the Washington Prodigy.
Continuing with its training programs and workshops in the apparel industry, ATDC (Apparel Training & Design Centre), India’s largest vocational training network for the apparel sector organised a three day workshop on ‘Skill Knowledge Enhancement’ aimed at training the supervisors and floor managers.
The workshop was held at ATDC Gurgaon where industry experts guided the participants. Nimish Dave, CEO & Founder, The Idea Smith; Neera Chandra, Consultant; Team of Experts from Shahi Exports under the guidance of J D Giri, Director, Shahi Exports imparted training to the participants. More than 30 participants from various industries of apparel sector attended the workshop. Prominent among them were Blackberry’s (KLPL), Blackberry’s (AVM), Shahi Exports, Gupta Exim India and Panorama Industries.
The training was professionally designed so that the participants could understand their roles and responsibilities and also learn the ‘best practices’ from leading experts of the apparel industry. They learnt that they should focus on productivity, quality and cost, without which, one cannot contribute to the optimum utilization of the resources and growth of organization. Focus areas at the workshop were garment classifications, measurements techniques, fundamental of specs sheets, seam and stitches, industrial engineering basics, workflow in the apparel industry, SAM/SMV calculations, productivity and quality improvement and compliances in the factory.
Darlie Koshy, DG & CEO ATDC & IAM said, “While this three-day training programme has given the impetus for supervisory staff to especially look at industrial engineering, cost saving methods and labour control and motivation, it is necessary that training is taken as a continuous process. We need to train staff at every level including the labour force to become more efficient and productive. He requested the export community to continuously focus on training and retraining for better commitments and for improving competitiveness.”
www.atdcindia.co.in
The fourth international textile and apparel fair 'Vastra' will be held in Jaipur, from September 28-30. It aims to promote India as a prominent sourcing hub and investment destination in the textile sector. The fair is being organised by Rajasthan State Industrial Development and Investment Corporation (RIICO) in collaboration with FICCI and Union Ministry of Textiles. Around 250 exhibitors, 400 overseas buyers and 60 Indian buying houses are expected to attend the mega fair.
According to Veenu Gupta, Managing Director of RIICO, who is also Principal Secretary, Industries, at the recent Delhi Roadshow, Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs) for textile projects worth Rs 2,500 crores were signed. The Vastra fair provides an apt platform for display of latest offerings in textiles, also assisting participants and exhibitors for forming new business relations, exports, partnerships worldwide and locations for setting up businesses in India, among others.
Overseas buyers are mainly expected to visit from countries like Algeria, Australia, Hong Kong, Italy , Japan and the UK. Business worth $85 million was generated during 'VASTRA -2014' held in Jaipur last year.
www.vastratex.com
The issue of improvement of textile industry was recently addressed by the Southern India Mills’ Association. The Association has appealed to the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu to take up with the Union government the need for support to the textile industry with an interim package. This will improve competitiveness. T Rajkumar, Chairman of the Association said that the textile industry, especially the spinning mills, in the state is going through recession. An interim package, that provides subsidy for export of textile products, will enable them to increase exports.
In the last 15 years, Tamil Nadu attracted over Rs 1.5 lakh crores investment and is the only State that has the entire textile value chain— from spinning to garment making. They comprises almost one-third of the size of Indian textile industry.
Competitiveness of the industry though, has been affected because of several reasons, such as import and export tariff barriers, pending release of subsidies under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, import of manmade fibre and yarn, etc. The industry has made an appeal to the State government to reduce VAT on cone yarn to two per cent from five per cent, to exempt cotton and cotton waste from market cess, and draft a textile policy focusing on value addition. The government is already mulling over this appeal.
The Association wants Rs 6,500 crores allocation to clear dues pending under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme, expedite trade agreements with China and other countries, provide an interim package with subsidies for the textile industry, and reduce the excise duty on manmade fibre.
From October 21 to 25, 2015, Moscow will host the fashion marathon -- Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia (MBFW) Season Spring/Summer 2016. Over 70 designers from Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Turkey, China and other countries will display their collections at the fair venue, Manezh.
A list of well known designers like Alena Akhmadullina, Viva Vox, Tony Ward Couture, Yasya Minochkina (the Ukraine), Julia Nikolaeva, Laroom, Pirosmani by Jenya Malygina, Igor Gulyaev, Masterpeace by Evgenia Linovich, Julia Dalakian, Yez by Yegor Zaitsev, Goga Nikabadze (Georgia), Dimnew and many other successful designers, will be presenting their collections. Their work has already been acknowledged by fashion communities in Russia and abroad.
The new season will open with Slava Zaitsev’s show. One of the key elements of the foreign program will be premier night of evening gowns by Tarik Ediz brand from Turkey. Among the talented newcomers supported by Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia include: Tako Mekvabidze from Georgia, Ivanova, Eka Balanchivadze from Georgia and Araida, among others.
Young designers Vika Smolyanitskaya, Outlaw Moscow and Ksenia Knyazeva who demonstrated their collections in the presentation-format last season, will début on the runway, this year. Premier collections created by designers who are just starting their careers, will be presented during group shows, competitions and as capsule collections in the showrooms.
Annually, MBFW Russia also hosts shows of foreign designers. This season, the fashion week will present a shows of leading Chinese designers. Participants of the fashion week in the South-East Asia - Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week will show their premier collections for the Spring/Summer Season 2016 on the runway and in showrooms. Presentation of Chinese designers at MBFW in Russia will be held as a part of collaboration of the largest fashion weeks in Russia and China.
The three-year agreement on strategic partnership between Russian Fashion Council and China Fashion Association was signed in 2014. The first event aimed at promoting home fashion on the largest foreign market was marked by participation of Russian manufacturers in Mercedes-Benz China Fashion Week and DHUB exhibition in October 2014 in Beijing.
www.mercedesbenzfashionweek.ru
