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Planet Textiles, which recently came to a close, had a resounding message—only if the new environmental regulations are properly enforced, they can have a positive impact on the Chinese textile sector.
Speakers from the ZHDC Group, VF Corp, Adidas, bluesign, and IPE China spoke at the event. Some used the conference to unveil a new report, which measures apparel brands’ performance in managing the environmental impacts of factories in their supply chains in China.
John Mowbray Ecotextile News editor, while introducing the event said that the Chinese government was now taking environmental regulations in its textile sector more seriously and tough new regulations have come into force earlier this year. Mowbray though feels that the bigger issue is overall, and not just China, how can the authorities effectively enforce the new regulations across the whole industry.
Planet Textiles was the first textile sustainability conference that was hosted in China; the first show took place there in 2009. Mowbray, while explaining the move to China said that attending and organising sustainability events in Europe, there was always a void left at the conferences, though they were excellent. The Chinese textile manufacturing community where most of the textiles are made was the missing factor, he said. Mowbray believes that the event in China has definitely led the way and helped to move the conversation forward in China.
www.planet-textiles.com
The port city of Dalian in China will boost its garment manufacturing industry by creating six development centers. The six innovation centers are the core of the overall upgrade strategy of Dalian’s garment industry. These development centers would deliver better design services and improved testing facilities for quality control of exports.
Dalian will frame policies to reduce administrative burdens, improve technical innovation and help developments in the local petrochemical industry to benefit textile industry customers.
Exports will also benefit from the Dalian garment inspection and testing center. It will offer reduced cost international-standard testing of factors such as ecological impact, atomic absorption, flammability, colour fastness, covering hundreds of testing standards. Other centers will provide training, school uniform research, work wear development and industry integration.
Part of the plan is to make Dalian a brand in its own right for clothing, especially suits. In the next three to five years, the centers will strengthen Dalian’s current suit brands and continuously expand the range of brands with this substantial increase in research and development capabilities, further establishing the status of Dalian-made suit brands at home and overseas.
Dalian has major producers, processors and exporters of apparels with a focus on men’s business suits. These companies supply retailers and brands such as Macy’s, DKNY and Banana Republic.
To meet the challenges from buyers to compete with international competitors, RMG industries have now got a strong foothold in Bangladesh after a long struggle.
These industries, after local business threats that come from political instability and other crises, are surviving today. Around 4,500 garment industries are engaged in manufacturing and exporting RMG products. 3,500 garment factories are compliant and capable to meet any orders of world-class buyers in terms of quality, value and volume, as per the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
Bangladesh’s RMG industries are the top exporters of the world; the industry exports are pegged at 81 per cent of the total earnings of the country. Thus, the industry needs support from stakeholders, the government, and central bank and trade bodies of the country to expand its exports and sustain its growth. It does encounter impediments from competitors, international and national political instability.
The USA, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Canada are main buyers of Bangladeshi RMG. The total export to these countries was $4,956.73 million of which 91.14 per cent (woven 51.55 per cent and knitwear 39.59 per cent) were garments, in the January-March 2015 quarter. Bangladesh's garments are facing stiff competition with the other exporters in the European countries. The government’s move of withdrawal of cash incentives given to the exporters has worsened the situation. Now, the Bangladeshi RMG exporters now face fierce competition in EU countries. The country’s apparel exporters would face a huge setback due to elimination of cash incentives.
To increase export of Bangladesh's RMG products, different strategies need to be adopted. Changing the products in terms of types and brands, diversifying the export-targeted countries in different continents will increase exports of the country.
www.bgmea.com.bd
Jupiter Comtex has introduced an innovation in indigo rope dyeing technology. This technology obtains deep Indigo shades of around six per cent. Ropes are prepared on ball warping after which cones are converted into ropes. There is no yarn waste or shade variation and it also offers higher productivity due to continuous process.
Jupiter Comtex is into warping, sizing and indigo denim yarn and fabric dyeing technologies. Its indigo rope dyeing machine is technologically different from other machines. Its tension control system is digital. Reliability is high as critical parts like drives, sensors, load cells are imported from Europe and the PLC controlled pre-calibrated cup dosing system is very accurate and more reliable than the metering pump dosing system.
Jupiter holds a massive 90 per cent share of the Indian denim fabric dyeing machinery installed in India and counts among its Indian clients top denim fabric makers like Arvind, Aarvee, Nandan and Raymond.
The company opened in 1973. It manufactures world-class weaving preparatory textile machinery. These machines are user-friendly. It also offers denim sheeting dyeing machines and has so far installed 90 of these sheeting machines worldwide. It expects to install ten more by the first half of 2016. Jupiter will be displaying its innovations at ITMA 2015.
www.jupitercomtex.com
One of India’s largest home textile manufacturer, Welspun has set a target of more than doubling its revenue to 2.5 billion dollars by 2020. According to the estimates, the Mumbai-based company, which is also the single largest player in the 17 billion dollars American home textiles space with a five percent market share, gets almost one-third or one billion dollars of its group revenue of three billion dollars from the textiles business.
The company also ventured into the ecommerce space by launching an online portal, Shopwelspun.com, which will offer brands such as SPACES Home & Beyond, Welhome and Spun, covering products such as rugs, carpets as well as bed and bath products. In order to enhance customer engagement and interaction, the portal will feature user-generated content and blogs from experts on home furnishing trends and home decor tips. The company expects this channel to contribute 25 percent to its total sales by 2020.
It recently bagged the license to supply towels to the teams vying for the coveted 2015 Rugby World Cup in the UK. This is not the first time that Welspun's towels made at its manufacturing capacities in Gujarat are making their presence at a global sporting event. In 2006, the company held license to manufacture towels for the Wimbledon tennis tournament.
The company has emerged strong in manufacturing textiles—towels and bed sheets. Around 95 per cent of Welspun’s revenue is driven by exports to global retailers in the US such as Walmart Stores and JCPenney. Companies like Welspun are also investing in research and development (R&D) to innovate and grow their business. The company has applied for six patents in Europe, the US, Brazil, China, Korea and Australia for its creations such as natural finish fabric, ergonomics mattress pad and eco-dry towels that use little water during washing. It has already got patents for Hygrocotton that has a hollow core for fluffiness, temperature control and moisture wicking, from the UK and the US in the past two years.
www.welspunindia.com
With manufacturing facilities in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, Trident, the flagship of the Trident Group, operates in two main business segments, textiles and paper. Trident has become one of the largest integrated home textile producers in the world with the stabilisation of its new towel facility at Budni in Madhya Pradesh and the recent foray into bed linen.
The company has nine manufacturing units in Barnala (Punjab) and Budni (Madhya Pradesh) with state-of-the-art facilities (ring spinning, carding, combing, open-ended spinning and yarn dying) sourced from globally-renowned suppliers, with an installed capacity of 3.66 lakh spindles and 5,500 rotors capable of manufacturing 8,400 tonnes of cotton and blended yarn per month. The product range services the needs of the knitting, weaving, denim, hosiery, shirting and suiting segments.
Last year, Trident increased its towel manufacturing capacity to 688 looms. The plant at Budni is the biggest standalone terry towel facility globally. At present the company’s production capacity is 88,775 metric tonnes of towel per annum at optimum utilisation with a balanced product mix, and a bed linen production capacity of 43 million metres. Textile products from Trident are exported to over 60 countries and contribute 78 per cent to the total revenue of Rs. 37,843 million.
Rajinder Gupta, Chairman, Trident Group said that over the next few years, the company’s focus is to improve the contribution of home textile products to the overall revenue mix by enhancing their presence in the domestic market and deepening their penetration in the export market. This, he says would enable them to deliver healthy earnings growth, in future.
www.tridentindia.com
The Central government has received a request from the textile industry from South India to have a transparent and fair cotton trading policy, which would ensure a win-win strategy for both, the farming and cotton textile manufacturing communities.
M Senthilkumar, Chairman of Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA), in a release proposed the restructuring of Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) board by inducting major stakeholders, particularly, industry representatives, which consumes over 80 per cent of the cotton produced in the country. The ailing textile industry would be aggravated by any short-sighted policy, which would result in serious financial stress, he said.
During the 2014/15 season, Senthilkumar mentioned, CCI procured the entire volume of good quality cotton grown in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Maharashtra and did not release it for more than two months making the actual users to suffer seriously. Besides, he stated that CCI has always been quoting a much higher benchmark price than the actual market price, thus resulting in speculation.
The kapas price and the kapas procurement by the regular ginners is affected as the CCI plays a major role in seed sales and often sells the seeds at lower price, he added. Thus, to ensure a level playing field and to enable the textile industry to source the raw material always at international price and remain competitive in the open market Senthilkumar has urged the Union Textile Minister to take certain remedial measures.
www.simamills.com
cotcorp.gov.in
Silk from Nagaland is in high demand. Weavers produce mufflers, pouches, knitted caps, tops, shawls, neck ties, all made of silk yarns. Nagaland silk is also called Golden Silk. An emporium for silk products and showpieces dubbed Silkporium has been inaugurated in the Nagaland capital, Kohima. The emporium will bring silk growers, weavers and consumers together.
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoons. The best-known silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm reared in captivity.
The shimmering appearance of silk is due to the triangular prism-like structure of the silk fiber, which allows silk cloth to refract incoming light at different angles, thus producing different colours. Silk is produced by several insects, but generally only the silk of moth caterpillars has been used for textile manufacturing.
Silk is mainly produced by the larvae of insects undergoing complete metamorphosis, but some adult insects such as web-spinners also produce silk, and some insects such as raspy crickets produce silk throughout their lives. Various spiders also produce silk.
According to court documents, American Apparel fashion chain will soon have its most profitable years ever, if the company manages to achieve the bankruptcy turnaround it aims for.
Heavy losses bog down the company’s growth
The company, known for its sexually charged advertising campaigns, in a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Wilmington stated that it would return to profit in 2018, its first money-making year since 2009. The brand had made repeated losses and its sales fell by 17 per cent in the second half of 2014. A lack of new styles was cited as a cause for this. The brand’s losses through the last five years have topped $340 million, and it has lost $45 million more in 2015.
The brand also runs the risk of being de-listed according to the New York Stock Exchange. It stated that the company’s financial condition is so critical that whether it would manage to stay in the business was questionable.
Dov Charney, the founder was fired as Chief Executive last year. In the court filing, the company stated that the ongoing legal battles with him, is one the risks to its future. Charney is accused by the brand of orchestrating protests at the headquarters and said he could undermine the ability to hire staff and executives.
American Apparel in turn, assured suppliers and other creditors that though they were going to get hardly anything for what the company owes them, they were key to the future.
The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to lower crushing interest costs and not to end contracts with suppliers and landlords, Scott Greenberg, one of the company's bankruptcy attorneys told the gathering of the brand’s creditors. He said that these relationships were critical to them.
The company’s unsecured creditors, who are collectively owed about $145 million, will receive $1 million to split among them, according to the company’s court filings. The creditors gathered in Wilmington, Delaware to form an official committee to represent their interests in the bankruptcy.
Surrounded by controversy
For years, American Apparel has been chased by changing spending habits among teen shoppers while also being embroiled in litigation related to Charney. Last year, Charney was fired for allegations of sexual harassment and potential misconduct after internal investigation.
However, an attorney for him said that he was never found guilty of committing sexual harassment. Keith Fink, in a statement said that Charney was fired as he wouldn't surrender control of his company.
The company creditors’ meeting was not attended by Charney, though he is listed among the creditors. By eliminating $200 million in bonds, the company plans to stabilise its finances by granting the bondholders a group of hedge funds, and ownership of the company.
American Apparel’s current shareholders could be wiped out due to the bankruptcy including Charney. His stake in the retailer, which he founded in 1989, was worth about $8.2 million until a few days ago. Now, the creditors would be in full control, including Standard General.
www.americanapparel.net
Doan Duy Khuong, Vice-Chairman, Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) said that India had had great opportunities to provide raw materials to Vietnam's textile industry. He was speaking at the recently held Vietnam - India textile cooperation conference in Ha Noi.
Khuong said that the country’s cotton output met only 1 per cent of local producers' demand. Thus, the domestic garment and textile sector had to import a large quantity of cotton. Vietnam needs more than 500,000 tonnes of cotton per year to meet the rising demand. He added that India had enough supply of the material for the Vietnamese textile industry.
Leaders and business communities of Vietnam and India have been drawn towards bilateral cooperation in textile and garment sectors. DoThang Hai, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade said, in October last year, when Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung visited India, the Indian Government offered a $300 million line of credit to Vietnam as an impetus to accelerate textile trade and investment between the two countries.
Khuong stated that the Vietnam textile industry had grown substantially in the past recent years and will continue to develop in the future. The country’s garment industry constitutes 20 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP). Its garment exports’ turnover is forecasted at $40 billion in 2020.
Foreign enterprises have invested in Vietnamese textile industry with projects worth hundreds of millions dollars with the successful negotiation conclusion of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
India and Vietnam’s bilateral trade ties have grown significantly, with a total trade turnover of $5.59 billion in last year, increasing by 9.84 per cent compared to 2013.
www.moit.gov.vn
