FW
Currently estimated at $110 billion, the Indian textile industry is likely to grow to $250 billion in the next two years. The country currently exports textiles worth $40 billion every year.
The last two years have witnessed a new surge of optimism in the textile sector as the centre has announced capital investment subsidy in segments such as garment, weaving and technical textile to help the sector. Rebate on state levies have been introduced to promote exports and additional 10 per cent subsidy on made ups and garment segments, leading to home textile industry getting a 25 per cent capital investment subsidy on new machines.
Textile companies across India are expanding their operations by entering into knitted fabric, or diversifying into denim fabric segment or into allied categories. Others are enjoying good export growth, not impacted by Indian market conditions. Few others are creating a niche with their focused products or target market. The growing demand of polyester is another big reason behind this expansion. A look at some of these ongoing expansion plans of the companies:
Sintex Group: The Sintex Group is globally recognised manufacturer of structured fabrics for high-end fashion shirting. The group’s fibre-to-fabric facility 
at Kalol is one of the largest weaving units in India. It is setting up one of India’s largest compact yarn facilities with one million spindles, to be commissioned in a phased manner. The group commenced operations of Phase I comprising 3.06 lakh spindles spinning superior quality compact yarn for weaving and knitting operations during 2016-17.
Morarjee Textiles Ltd: Morarjee Mills has undertaken a backward integration project to integrate the manufacturing processes and reduce dependence on vendors of yarn and weaved fabric.The expansion project comprises expansion of the spinning facility by 40,128 spindles, weaving capacity increased by 112 looms, printing capacity enhanced by 78 lakh meters per annum, and installation of ‘Ready for Dyeing’ (RFD) machinery.
Nitin Spinners Ltd: Nitin Spinners is one of the leading producers of 100% cotton yarn and knitted fabrics at its plants at Hamirgarh in the Bhilwara district of Rajasthan. The company is setting up an integrated textiles unit with facilities from spinning to processing as a greenfield project. The unit will have the capability to manufacture all types of processed fabrics to meet the complete requirements of apparel manufacturers.
Sutlej Textiles and Industries: Sutlej Textiles and Industries is setting up a greenfield project to manufacture polyester staple fibre by recycling of pet bottles at Samba in Jammu & Kashmir. The company is setting up a recycled PSF plant of 80 MT/day capacity with product range of raw white recycle fibre & black recycle fibre. The project costing Rs. 110 crores is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2020.
Sutlej has also invested around Rs. 51 crores in the first nine months of 2018-19 towards technology upgradation and debottlenecking. This will result in further improvement in efficiency and sustaining plant utilization.
Indian synthetic yarn exports haven’t grown substantially.
The industry is globally uncompetitive in terms of prices, compared to China, Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Indonesia and Malaysia.
As the share of domestic sales in synthetic yarn is substantially more than exports, the industry has had much less of a benefit from a falling rupee.
The industry has become entirely global and prices are based on international market comparisons. This is also a period of slacker demand.
PTA/ MEG and benzene are crude oil derivatives and have seen a price rise of 25 per cent to 30 per cent and 30 per cent to 35 per cent respectively in six months. Demand has also been poor. Be it spinning, weaving or even finished products, the synthetic yarn value chain has been unable to forward the price rise to buyers.
Imports are turning unviable and have slowed. Also, the market has turned volatile.
An increase in crude oil prices has led to a great rise in its derivative petrochemicals, polymers, plastic-making raw material and feedstock like naphtha.
The price increase in the international market for all petrochemicals, solvents and polymers has been sharp since April.
India’s synthetic yarn exports grew in 2017-18 by about five per cent.
Must Garments is a manufacturer and supplier of high-quality garments.
It supplies products to some top brands like JC Penney, Walmart, Macy’s, Target, Ann Taylor and Amazon. It has manufacturing units in Bangladesh, Jordan and Oman that manufacture over 60 million pieces a year.
Must has invested heavily in RFID production technology and nanotech and foam dyeing for its wet processing. Some of these efforts have brought about as much as 98 per cent savings in water and huge savings in energy and chemicals that are used in the production of its garments.
In the face of inflation of wages, energy and food and commodities, automation and investment in technology has become the biggest opportunity and the need of the apparel industry considering how labor-intense the industry is.
Must manufactures goods in Bangladesh and the Middle East. The new US policies were helpful in some ways, but not in others. In the Middle East, there are no likely TPL extensions possible. Hence, the duty-free status will go away in a lot of the countries like Bahrain and Oman and now the company is moving to Jordan which has a more stable FTA. On the other hand, pulling out of TPP perhaps put the brakes on the possible duty-free status in Vietnam, which might assist the company in the long term.
The US has banned imports of cotton or products made with cotton from Turkmenistan after discovering the reality of state-orchestrated forced labor.
While direct trade between the US and Turkmenistan is relatively small, the Central Asian country exports cotton to Turkey, Pakistan, India and China.
Apparel brands producing garments from those nations will need to pay attention to their cotton sources.
Similarly when forced labor was discovered in cotton harvesting in Uzbekistan, nearly 300 brands and retailers, including Adidas, H&M and Fruit of the Loom, signed a pledge to eliminate Uzbek cotton from their supply chain.
Knowing the origin of a garment isn't as simple as taking a look at the Made In label. While a T-shirt may be manufactured at a factory in Asia, the raw materials could come from all over the world.
More than 80 countries worldwide produce cotton, and spinners blend a lot of their cotton and mix it together from several different countries to maintain consistency and quality.
The challenge for apparel brands is knowing the source of cotton in their products — or they risk having their products turned away at the border. Most brands don’t buy yarn. And they don't have the relationships with yarn and textile mills.
In addition to working with suppliers, brands need to assess risk. Nearly three quarters of cotton exports from Turkmenistan go to Turkey. If an apparel brand has a production facility in Turkey, there's a higher risk Turkmenistan cotton is in their products.
Turkey’s exports increased 12.2 per cent in May compared to the same month last year.
On a quantity basis, the country’s exports increased by 3.8 per cent year-on-year in the month.
The country’s 12-month exports also jumped 10.2 per cent year-on-year. Exports during the first five months of 2018 were up 9.3 per cent over the same period last year.
In May, 19.8 per cent of Turkey’s exports came from the automotive sector, up 7.9 per cent compared to May 2017.
Auto sector exports were followed by the clothing and chemical products sectors.
Turkey’s exports to Germany, Britain and Italy rose 9.76 per cent, 12.51 per cent and 23.32 per cent, respectively, year-on-year in May.
Turkey continued to receive results from the export and growth campaigns launched in 2016. The country is expected to see a growth rate of 7.5 per cent in the first quarter.
The euro/US dollar parity is higher than last year. The Turkish lira has gone through a period in which it experienced a very fast value loss.
Capacity utilization rates, investment incentives and the industrial manufacturing index look healthy. The country is taking steps to abolish the current deficit problem with its investments and exports.
Variant has launched a new eco-friendly knitwear portal, which ethically sources luxury material and also utilises 3D localised production to significantly reduce waste. The portal allows its users to design unique, custom, high-quality products that are ready to ship in days.
To use this portal Variant users have to simply log into the platform, upload their custom design, drop it onto a 3D virtual garment that they select from the Variant stock, then place their order. The request is then sent to one of Variant’s localised factories, where the garment is produced and shipped to the customer within ten business days.
Compared to traditional manufacturing methods, the portal reduces textile waste by 95 per cent by knitting each style off the machine. With Variant's platform, anyone can be a designer and everyone can have access to the highest quality production teams and tools while reducing their environmental impact,
The ILO committee recently denounced the Haitian government for its failure to uphold international standards and national laws on working time and freedom of association. Although on paper, Haiti’s garment workers work for only 9 hours daily, in reality however they put in several more hours off the clock to reach their production targets.
The government has failed to uphold international standards and national employment laws, which is giving employers and their multinational customers free reign to steal from the world’s poorest workers. To make matters worse, the government has introduced a new law on working time which repeals existing standards on overtime, weekly rest and Sunday pay and nightime rates.
In May of last year, workers at 22 garment factories went on strike to demand higher wages. Dozens of union leaders and members of GOSTTRA have yet to be reinstated, in spite of very clear recommendations following an investigation by the ILO’s Better Work programme. Not only were they not reinstated, they were also blacklisted.
Backed by major brands like Stella McCartney and H&M, the Cradle-to-Cradle Institute’s Fashion Positive+ programme strives to ‘reinvent the basic building blocks of fashion’. The programme has awarded US$ 50 000 to Worn Again, an innovator developing chemical recycling technology to separate blends and create recycled polyester fiber.
An increasing number of Cradle-to-Cradle certified members have received a ‘gold’ label for their products and processes. In 2017, 12 new companies attained gold status. This is the second highest rating, with platinum being the best. The programme recently published the “Fashion Positive Emerging Material Innovators Report”, detailing the innovative efforts of 12 new pioneers in the textiles value chain.
To further encourage positive change, the programme recently published the “Fashion Positive Emerging Material Innovators Report”, detailing the innovative efforts of 12 new pioneers in the textiles value chain. The programme also hosts webinars and workshops to educate industry stakeholders about anything from chemically recycled fibres, using all-natural dyes, and how to minimise the amount of energy and water used by clothing producers.
According to Deloitte’s Global Powers of Luxury Goods 2018 report, the world's ten leading luxury corporations generated nearly half of the Top 100 ranking’s aggregate sales. The three groups at the top of the ranking, LVMH, Estée Lauder and Richemont, posted double-digit growth year-on-year for each of the last five years.
Sales growth slowed down for the majority of corporations, partly due to the comparison with high growth rates boosted by exchange rate differentials, but also as a result of the tough economic environment and the weakness of consumer demand for luxury products.
In the financial year 2016, the Top 100 luxury corporations are estimated to have generated a revenue of $217 billion in luxury goods, equivalent to only a 1% growth, compared to 5.8% the previous year at constant exchange rates. However, 57 of the 100 groups ranked did increase their revenue, and 22 of them posted double-digit growth.
Swedish furniture giant IKEA and American music mogul Sean Combs’ clothing have not yet signed the new accord for the safety of factory workers. The new pact is a three-year extension of the Bangladesh Accord, a legally-binding agreement between global brands and trade unions drawn up after the Rana Plaza collapse. It established a fire and safety program for the country’s $28 billion a year textile industry, which employs about 4 million people.
Till now, 175 of the 220 companies in the original accord have signed, but high-profile brands including Abercrombie & Fitch, Combs’ Sean John apparel and Britain’s Edinburgh Woollen Mill have not signed as yet. Campaigners have urged them to do so, arguing that other schemes such as IWAY lack transparency because they do not make inspection findings and reports public.
Bangladesh, which ranks behind only China as a supplier of clothes to Western countries, relies on the garment industry for more than 80 percent of its exports.
