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"Though it’s difficult for the millennial to imagine the UK as a mass producer of clothing and textiles, the nation in 1970s had a thriving textile manufacturing industry. The industry started to drift slowly by early 1980s when retailers and brands relocated to emerging markets in a bid to cut costs and increase margins. The bulk of this manufacturing drifted to China, which effectively began churning out goods for markets across the globe. In the early 2000s, the UK clothing and textiles sector reached its low¬est number of employees, totaling only about 90,000 workers. As expected, with a big fall in demand, factories across the UK closed down, although some firms specialising in tailoring, outerwear and premium knitwear clung on to British soil."
Though it’s difficult for the millennial to imagine the UK as a mass producer of clothing and textiles, the nation in 1970s had a thriving textile manufacturing industry. The industry started to drift slowly by early 1980s when retailers and brands relocated to emerging markets in a bid to cut costs and increase margins. The bulk of this manufacturing drifted to China, which effectively began churning out goods for markets across the globe. In the early 2000s, the UK clothing and textiles sector reached its low¬est number of employees, totaling only about 90,000 workers. As expected, with a big fall in demand, factories across the UK closed down, although some firms specialising in tailoring, outerwear and premium knitwear clung on to British soil.
Market revival
In 2007, Zara swooped on to the global market, creating a fast fashion model that others envied. Some retailers
and brands started to bring manufacturing – albeit a small amount – back to the UK. This resurgence was also fuelled by a newly found interest in Made in UK products. The emerging BRICs economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) created a new wave of consumers with new spending power, and they desired British-made goods.
The biggest increase came from a rise in the number of garment manufacturers, up 10.7 per cent to 3,830 companies, while the number of textile producers had increased 4.9 per cent year on year to 4,030. This growth was attributed to the rising cost of overseas production, increasing need for supply control and flexibility, and growing demand for UK-produced clothing.
The number of people employed in textile and clothing manufacturing (including self-employed) was at its highest level since 2006, at about 132,000. The UK’s decision to leave the European Union also encouraged retailers to look closer home for sourcing. The weakness of sterling since the Brexit vote – and the attendant effect on exchange rates – resulted in higher import costs, and makes buying in pounds from within the UK a more attractive prospect than it has been for some time.
Workforce limitations
A survey of textiles employers for a report published by the Alliance Project in 2015 revealed, the potential for rejuvenated UK textile manufacturing, 37 per cent of the firms felt that skills shortages were a barrier to growth. Almost half (49 per cent) reported hard-to-fill vacancies, and half said their recruitment problems in the past two years had related to small numbers of applicants with the experience and qualifications required.
In April 2017’s ONS Labour Force survey found the UK’s textiles workforce stood at 127,500 across all skill levels, from packing and warehouse staff to board directors. The age profile of workforce is another limitation. A lot of manufacturing workforce is above 40. So the brands have to make manufacturing more appealing to young people and urge to take it up as a career. The prospect of Brexit makes predictions about how UK manufacturing will pan out, tough. But most analysts remain ¬optimistic. Certainly, the industry needs to rally together to help keep up the momentum.
Xinjiang has attracted major textile companies from East and South China to set up branches and factories, as the largest cotton grower in China. Aksu, Kashgar and Hotan in Southern Xinjiang are major producers of cotton. Aksu's long-staple cotton output accounts for 93 percent of the country's total.
According to Sun Weiting, these factories do not only produce textiles, but are also involved in a fashion designing, developing platform and intelligent and digital machines for developing environmentally-friendly textiles. The textile mill is owned by Huafu Fashion, the world's largest supplier of melange yarn, which is based in east China's Zhejiang Province.
The company also invested 2.5 billion yuan to build a dyeing industrial park in Aksu, which is designed with a capacity for dyeing and printing 100,000 tonne of cotton yarn a year. The world's largest textile mill for spinning colored yarn was launched in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Built with an investment of 5 billion yuan ($735 million), the mill in Aksu, southern Xinjiang, will see one million spindles installed by the end of the year.
Chinese textile manufacturers are shifting to the US. While labor costs are greater than that of China, energy, land and raw materials are cheaper in the United States. Therefore, total cost of production is less. Chinese manufacturers find the production cost per ton of textiles is 25 per cent lower in the US.
The cost of labor in China has been rising and other countries like the US could potentially do it better and cheaper. Labor would still be a lot more expensive. But energy costs could be notably less. These capital intensive textile mills have little labor costs and relatively cheaper energy prices.
Moving closer to the US benefits not only the upstream US supplies of textile components but also boosts the competitiveness of cut and sew operations in the NAFTA and DR-CAFTA regions, the US textile industry’s most important export markets. Moreover, tariffs would encourage more R&D focus on automating apparel assembly, technology showing very promising potential to re-shore jobs.
Unless China begins to automate its processes and to reduce its costs, it is inevitable more clothing makers will relocate to the US. And that will mean new investments in factories and machinery — if the tariffs were to go into place.
The Union Ministry of Textiles has issued a draft notification prescribing quality standards for cotton bales as per Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) norms. This will help Indian cotton get better prices in the long run and, in turn, benefit farmers. As per the notification, cotton bales will conform to IS 12171:2013 and shall bear the Standard Mark under a licence from the BIS as per Scheme–II of schedule II of BIS Conformity Assessment Regulations, 2018.
The certifying and enforcing authority for these bales will be the Bureau of Indian Standards along with an officer not below the rank of General Manager, District Industries Centre in the Department of Industries of the State Government. The government has fixed the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of cotton for 2018-19 season at Rs 5,150 per quintal for medium staple and Rs 5,450 per quintal for long staple.
Splenora Textures, based in Gujarat, is planning to start jeans manufacturing. It already produces six million meters of denim fabric per annum. The company will produce premium denim fabric like 12.5 ounce stretch denim, premium slub Lycra etc.
To cater to the market effectively, and to offer the best services, the company will not go for bulk production but will focus on quality and consistency. It has a plan to focus equally on exports and the domestic market but will change according to the dynamics of the market. Along with this plant the company is also eyeing garmenting. The products will be cost-effective as the fabric will be in-house.
Splenora has a setup for ginning and spinning, with 85,000 spindles. As the company has a small setup for garment manufacturing for job-work, it has the basic know-how of garment manufacturing too. It is in touch with some local clients and will approach all e-commerce giants for jeans. As it has its own spinning set up, it plans developments at the yarn stage too. So the feel of the fabric will be also unique.
India is witnessing a glut in denim fabric production as more than 45 denim mills are producing around 1.5 billion meters fabric a year.
India’s apparel exports are expected to grow at a modest pace of one to two per cent year on year for the rest of fiscal 2018-19. This is expected to be the fourth consecutive weak year for India’s apparel exports. With several internal as well as external headwinds, the past year turned out to be rather challenging for India’s apparel exporters. Transition to the new taxation regime, besides posing liquidity challenges for the industry, added to uncertainties because of alternating stances on export incentives during the year. Further, a stronger rupee heightened the challenges in the international market by affecting the competitiveness of players in an intensely competitive international apparel market.
However, with faster GST refunds, improved clarity on the rate of export incentives and the sharp rupee depreciation witnessed over the past few months, most of the industry’s concerns stand addressed to a large extent. Bangladesh and Vietnam have been key gainers from China’s loss of share in the global export market over the past couple of years. Vietnam is maintaining a healthy growth in its stronghold market of the US. Bangladesh continues to gain share in Europe. India’s apparel exports have exhibited an unencouraging trend, with a marginal de-growth of one per cent in fiscal 2018 as well as in the period April-July of fiscal 2019.
An upcycling mill has opened in Hong Kong. It produces recycled yarn spun out of old, discarded clothes. When fully equipped, it will be able to spin three tons of recycled fiber from roughly the same amount of textile waste daily, without affecting cost or quality. Hong Kong used to be a textile manufacturing powerhouse. The facility is owned by textile firm Novetex is expected to put the city’s textile industry back on the map.
The firm will collect old clothing and textiles from its retail partners or NGOs. Three production lines at the facility mechanically sanitise, sort and process the textiles into yarn in a largely automated process which can then be shipped off as raw material to mainland China and manufactured into new fabrics and garments. The operation requires at least six workers. The entire process operates without water or effluent discharge. Established in 1976, Novetex produces about nine million kg of wool annually.
New innovations in upcycling are vital because of the increasing costs and environmental concerns that come with producing conventional fibers such as cotton from scratch. With this mill Hong Kong wants to prove that it can solve its textile waste problem and that in such a small, compact city, sustainable textile recycling is feasible.
Garments exporters in Philippines expect orders from Chinese buyers to reach $250 million and generate up to 3,000 jobs this year, as China turns to the Philippines due to its competitive labor rates and initiatives to facilitate exports. As per Foreign Buyers Association of the Philippines (FBAOP), the country is currently experiencing an increase in garment orders amid the tariff conflict between China and the United States. This has resulted in regional rivals increasing their minimum wages resulting in higher manufacturing costs. Out of all cities, Manila is emerging as the most preferred city for buyer due its industrial peace and stable labor rates.
FBAOP has already secured $150 million worth of purchase orders from buyers in China, and plans to add another $100 million by December this year. Its production at five factories across Metro Manila, Bataan and Clark are ongoing for delivery by the end of the year. The association’s exports are expected to reach about $1 billion this year, bolstered by Chinese purchases of Philippine garments.
In Bangladesh textile and apparel sector lured the maximum amount of foreign direct investment during the first three months of 2018. Gross FDI inflow during January-March 2018 in the textile and apparel sector was over 24 per cent of the total FDI flowing into country over the same period. In 2017, FDI in Bangladesh’s textile and apparel sector rose 16 per cent over 2016.
South Korea was the number one investor in this sector followed by Hong Kong and British Virgin Islands. Bangladesh is seeking FDI from Singapore, India, Japan, China, Thailand and other countries. The country is expecting an FDI inflow of about $7 billion in fiscal 2017-18. This is a huge jump, considering the highest Bangladesh has received in recent years is $2 billion. This can be partly attributed to the development of 100 economic zones in Bangladesh.
Since the garment sector is growing fast in Bangladesh, foreign investors choose the country as an investment destination in the textile sector. The available workforce at a reasonable wage, duty-free market access to major export destination, preferential location in the heart of the Asia-Pacific region and policy support have acted as a catalyst to attract foreign investment in the textile and apparel industry.
Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has earmarked a $500 million financial boost to the country’s manufacturing sector. The banking company has increased the budget allocation by $200 million in comparison to the $300 released in March. However, key market players have, urged for more finances in the sector as the industry tries to reach its potential capacity.
The manufacturing sector in Ethiopia offers a variety of business opportunities for its investors. The country is building several industrial parks as a springboard to its economic development. One of these, the Hawassa Industrial Park was inaugurated in 2016 and is the largest park of its kind on the continent. Another, Bole Lemi I Industrial Park serves the textile and leather products. The government further plans to build 15 industrial parks by June next year. Ethiopia plans to be Africa's industrial hub by 2025 and has recorded a consistent economic growth. Its industrialisation efforts have been backed up by Government support as well as investors.
