FW
Sri Lankan is looking to expand its businesses in Pakistan. Among the companies looking to expand in Pakistan are: MW Ventures and the Hirdaramani Group. Hirdaramani is a pioneer in the Sri Lankan apparel industry, and boasts of a cohesive infrastructure providing end-to-end supply chain solutions to the industry through factories in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Ethiopia. Hirdaramani's partnership with leading global brands has helped it gain a reputation for streamlined processes and top-quality products.
MW Ventures is a service oriented organisation comprising different sectors of expertise focusing on marketing, financial management, and event management. It also provides financial management solutions for businesses or for individu Foreign investment in Pakistan is protected by rigorous laws and foreign direct investment regulations allow full repatriation of capital and profits. Moreover, Pakistan’s location on the cusp of important economic regions, young population and skilled labor force supported by a rapidly growing technology infrastructure has made it an attractive destination for investment not only for the domestic market but also as a production and export hub for the rest of the world.
Sri Lanka has aspirations to become a middle-high income country by 2025 by having a highly competitive economy with a diversity of products and services for local requirements and export markets.
HKTDC will organize nine fairs in Hong Kong from September to November. These will cover watches and clocks, fashion, electronic products, lighting products, green products, spectacles as well as wine and spirits. The fairs will serve as an ideal platform for traders and suppliers from India to expand their businesses into new markets.
Indian buyers, distributors and retailers can experience the benefit of sourcing through HKTDC’s trade fairs. India is Hong Kong’s seventh largest trading partner. In the first half of 2018, total trade between Hong Kong and India was $14.4 billion. In particular, Hong Kong’s total exports to India amounted to $8.3 billion and total import value from India reached $6.1 billion.
Indian companies are keen to seek business opportunities through HKTDC’s exhibitions. HKTDC’s fairs, some 30 of them, attracted about 39,000 exhibitors and over 7,50,000 visitors from all over the world in 2017-2018. Of these, over 14,000 exhibitors and buyers are from India.
HKTDC exhibitions are supported by a combination of international quality exhibitors and buyers. Synergised with mobile-friendly sourcing services, the HKTDC marketplace app, and more than 20 print and online product magazines and industry supplements, these exhibitions are the perfect starting point for year-round business connections between buyers and suppliers, facilitated by the organiser’s integrated online-offline marketplace.
Cotton Council International (CCI) has created an array of US cotton-rich apparel with the help of innovative technology. It will showcase different ways to use US cotton in apparel that benefit consumer demand, while providing global brands and retailers product opportunities that can drive sales growth.
CCI has done innovation in technologies, fabric blends, performance, design and fashion. Since introducing its What's New In Cotton initiative last fall, CCI has teamed up with more than 12 partners from across the world to present textile innovations that inspire new uses of US cotton.
Past innovations included workout wear that promotes faster recovery times, all-natural odour control towels and bed linens and a new technology to produce a softer cotton. All these innovations feature US cotton-rich fabrics.
Companies joining the Cotton USA licensing program can capitalise on US cotton’s sales benefits and streamline their sourcing. The Cotton USA mark is preferred by a 4-1 margin over a 100 per cent cotton label. Furthermore, consumers are willing to pay more money for products with the mark.
Cotton Council International, the export promotion arm of the National Cotton Council of America, is a non-profit that promotes US cotton fiber and manufactured cotton products around the globe with its Cotton USA trademark.
The British Fashion Council (BFC), a non-profit trade organisation, will hold a fur-free London Fashion where real fur would be totally absent from the runways. The council took this decision after it announced the results of a survey conducted with all designers on the official London Fashion Week catwalk and presentation schedule. Burberry’s new Creative Director Riccardo Tisci will showcase his entirely fur-free debut collection at LFW next week.
The fashion industry as a whole has been accelerating its transition to a more ethical, fur-free future in recent years, with anti-fur stalwarts like Stella McCartney joined by Hugo Boss in 2015, Armani and The Kooples in 2016 and Gucci, Net-a-Porter and Michael Kors in 2017.
Earlier this year Tom Ford, Versace and Maison Margiela also committed to a fur-free future. This week Burberry became the latest high-end fashion brand to go fur-free. The BFC survey forms part of the organisation’s Positive Fashion initiative, a platform designed to celebrate industry best practice and encourage future business decisions to create further positive change.
"Sri Lanka faced export revenue losses of around Rs 250 billion after being blackballed and losing its GSP+ concession in August 2010 on allegations of human rights. The country, which according to the International Trade Centre, was much ahead of Vietnam, Pakistan and Cambodia in apparel exports in 2009, trailed them by 2015. Apparel exports in 2015 were $ 3.9 billion for Vietnam, $ 2.9 billion for Pakistan and $ 3.7 billion for Cambodia while Sri Lanka trailed at $ 2.4 billion. The European Union (EU) reinstated the EU GSP Plus facility to Sri Lanka on May 19, 2017. This facility provides Sri Lankan exports level playing field with its neighbours such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, and also several other countries from African and South American continents."
Sri Lanka faced export revenue losses of around Rs 250 billion after being blackballed and losing its GSP+ concession in August 2010 on allegations of human rights. The country, which according to the International Trade Centre, was much ahead of Vietnam, Pakistan and Cambodia in apparel exports in 2009, trailed them by 2015. Apparel exports in 2015 were $ 3.9 billion for Vietnam, $ 2.9 billion for Pakistan and $ 3.7 billion for Cambodia while Sri Lanka trailed at $ 2.4 billion.
The European Union (EU) reinstated the EU GSP Plus facility to Sri Lanka on May 19, 2017. This facility provides Sri Lankan exports level playing field with its neighbours such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, and also several other countries from African and South American continents.
A positive impact on the industry
A year after regaining GSP+ facility, apparel volume growth in Sri outstripped its revenue by 1-2 per cent,
suggesting modest sharing of price benefit with customers. Exports in the last two months have been particularly strong. The sector further estimates an increase of around 7,500 in jobs. Exports have already increased by $150million, 1/3rd of its stated target of $500 million increment for the apparel sector.
The GSP+ scheme encourages increased value addition within Sri Lanka, thereby promoting backward integration, resulting in the setting up of new industries, and creating new employment opportunities in the country.
Rise in export earnings
In 2017, Sri Lanka reported the highest ever export earnings of $15.1 billion, which may further rise to $17.4 billion this year. FDI inflows in 2017 were recorded at $1.9 billion and may rise to around $2.5 billion this year. Compared to other Asian countries however, Sri Lanka still lags behind. Annual exports of Singapore are estimated at $480 billion, Taiwan’s is $340 billion, Thailand’s $254 billion, in Vietnam’s $250 billion, and Malaysia’s $230 billion.
Benefits of FTAs
All these countries focused on FTAs, trade liberalisation, and foreign direct investment, to reach this level. Sri Lanka still has a long way to go in this regard. Right now, it’s only choice is to integrate with world markets. The country executed the Singapore FTA earlier this year and is in the advance stages of negotiating a FTA with China besides expanding its current FTA with India through Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA). ETCA can increase Sri Lanka’s competitiveness in industrial exports and also increase its supply capacity, to better utilise the market access to India.
ETCA negotiations address outstanding non-tariff barriers in the Indian market as well as many existing procedural barriers and delays in Indian ports of entry, particularly through Mutual Recognised Agreements. Together, the Chinese FTA and Indian ETCA give Sri Lanka preferential access to a market of two billion people and an emerging middle class larger than the whole of the EU.
The Sri Lankan government further plans to provide a trade adjustment package for local industrialists to upgrade machinery and introduce new technology so that these industries can be more competitive and serve the local market as well as export to the regional and global markets.
Google is looking to enter e-commerce in India. This could put pressure on existing players in terms of higher customer acquisition costs and providing a great shopping experience backed by the latest of technologies. Existing players who may not be paying huge attention to aspects like recommendation engines and the search experience will be forced to optimise on these aspects.
Though Google has an edge in terms of technology platforms, the existing e-commerce giants will shine with their strong supply chain and customer support. For consumers, the party will continue with lots of deals, discounts and cashbacks. The market will further ripen up for acquisitions. The big three, Google, Amazon and Walmart-backed Flipkart, flush with big money and investor optimism, will aim to buy out smaller players to beef up their e-commerce war chest in India.
Start-ups that operate in specialised niche domains such as medicines, cosmetics, food, furniture, fashion will continue to grow, acquire scale and ultimately get picked up by the big three. However the e-commerce scenario will mould in such a fashion that there wouldn’t be much space for horizontal e-commerce players that operate in multiple products and service categories. Instead strong vertical players will emerge in niche categories.
Pune-based Baani displayed various quilting solutions at the recent Garment Technology Expo (GTE) in Bengaluru. The company specialises in quilted jackets, stoles, clothing pieces, bags, pouches and other quilted products, besides custom designing the products as per the client’s needs. Baani is also the Indian distributor for the US-based thread brand Superior Threads which specialises in threads for sewing, embroidery and quilting. Baani received serious inquiries for the displayed threads during GTE.
MonoPoly (100 wt.) is the monofilament thread that is made for ‘invisible stitching’. King Tut (40 wt. 3 ply), the cotton thread, comes in a multitude of variegated colours and is extensively used with all types of machines. The polyester thread MicroQuilter is ideal for micro stippling, detailed quilting, and stitch in the ditch quilting. To make it easier for use with all kinds of machines, both home and long arm, the threads are available both in cone and spool variety.
The Textile, Garments & Tailoring Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (TGTSSAN) has appealed for a reduction in exchange rate to the federal government, particularly for the textile sector as it has been performing dismally for the last few years. The association attributed this to the difficulty in sourcing foreign exchange at affordable rates to enable investors import machines and other equipment for operation.
The association recommended a ban on foreign import of textile products and urged the government to encourage made-in-Nigeria products. It also stressed on the need to formulate policies that would guarantee continuous survival of the textile industry in the country and ensure effective implementation of policies through the declaration of a “National Dressing Day” in local fabrics.
The association also supported the government’s decision to give local textile firms a 90 per cent rebate on cost of generated power. This was necessary because between 30 per cent and 35 per cent of textile and garment manufacturing costs were energy-related. It also recommended a zero percent CBN interest loan to textile plants to build embedded power plants or pipelines to get gas to their factories.
Indonesia hopes to increase textile exports with the strengthening of the dollar against the rupiah. The textile sector is the third biggest foreign exchange earner for Indonesia. Palm oil industry is first followed by tourism. Textile and textile products industry is a strategic manufacturing sector in the Indonesian economy. The country’s foreign exchange earnings from textile exports are more than $3 dollars annually. Indonesia’s textile production was up eight per cent from January to March 2018.
The increase was triggered by domestic demand and tightening of wholesale and other imports. Indonesia hopes to triple textile and textile product exports in the next five years. If this happens, this sector will be Indonesia’s largest non-oil export contributor and create jobs for six million people.
The industry now wants an integrated cluster and close to the source of raw materials; a tightening of textile imports; affordable factory rental rates; upstream and downstream industries integrated in one region. In 2016, apparel exports decreased 3.2 per cent due to several challenges including high logistics costs and gas and power tariffs being higher than other competitor countries.
The chief minister of Manipur recently inspected the three manufacturing units of Imphal: Apparel and Garment Making Centre, Lamboikhongnangkhong in the west district. The building and machinery of unit-1 of the government-owned centre is currently utilised by Big Concepts Foundation and Unit-3 by a local company called Ningthibee Collections for high quality apparel production.
The three units can produce large number of apparels and garments. After accessing the production unit, the state will sign an MoU with a Mauritian company to supply about one lakh pieces of various apparels per month. The state is planning to sign a MoU with the two local private companies within a week to work together in this regard in public-private partnership model. Around 10 trainers from Delhi will train around 1,000 state youths to start large scale production of apparels, and the centre has machineries for around 350 workers.
