British Wool held its 65th Annual Conference last week in Bradford. The conference focused on two key areas: increasing value per kilo and improving operational efficiency. Some of the projects delivered so far include:

New tactical approach to structuring auctions, allowing trends and buying patterns to be analysed ahead of each sale. This has helped to support prices.

A new office in Shanghai, China, which opened in October 2018, designed to support local marketing and allow British Wool to penetrate new markets.

Ongoing marketing of British wool as a distinct quality fibre, explaining its unique features and benefits in a way that is relevant to each product range. This activity is delivered through retailers, consumer facing digital advertising channels, and at carefully selected consumer focused shows such as Grand Designs.

Delivery of a £600,000 labour cost saving during the 2017 season.

Syed Ali Ahsan is All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) new chairman. He is the chief executive of Ashiana Cotton Products. His uncle was among the founders of APTMA in 1957.

He aims to focus on the revival of the industry and double exports in five years; ensure provision of regionally competitive energy, both electricity and gas, to the exporting industry; double infrastructure of garment plants; reintroduce the enhanced industrial credit allocation policy; and induce international brands and retail chains to source from Pakistan.

Naveed Gulzar of Crescent Cotton Mills and Asif Inam of Diamond International Corporation are central vice chairmen. APTMA is the premier national trade association of the textile spinning, weaving, and composite mills representing the organized sector in Pakistan. APTMA represents 396 textile mills, out of which 315 are spinning, 44 weaving and 37 composite units.

The total installed capacity of APTMA member mills accounts for 9,661,366 spindles, 61,608 rotors, 10,452 shuttle less/airjet looms and 1897 conventional looms. The association’s members produce spun and open-¬end yarn, grey, printed dyed fabrics and bed linen.

Pakistan wants to compete with regional competitors including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam for enhancing the county’s exports and achieving the target of economic stability and growth.

"Around 23 years ago, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was refurbished as the WTO with almost every country in the world joining the organisation. As per agreed norms, trade tariffs amongst member countries are reduced through negotiations and the agreed rates applied uniformly to all trade partners. However, China which joined the organisation in 2001 does not adhere to these rules. It shakes down foreign investors for technologies it fancies besides giving subsidy to its own industries."

Around 23 years ago, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was refurbished as the WTO with almost every country in the world joining the organisation. As per agreed norms, trade tariffs amongst member countries are reduced through negotiations and the agreed rates applied uniformly to all trade partners. However, China which joined the organisation in 2001 does not adhere to these rules. It shakes down foreign investors for technologies it fancies besides giving subsidy to its own industries. While there are enough reasons for penalising China for flouting multilateral trade rules, through overproduction, dumping overseas and excessive restrictions on market access, however, the primary loser from this trade war is likely to be the American consumer as the hypothetical benefits of more manufacturing jobs will negated by the higher prices that the consumer has to pay.

China’s advantage over the US

It’s common knowledge that China grants vast and opaque subsidies to its state-owned firms. The US is therefore, right in demanding fair play. Its now looking to force manufacturing supply-chains back to America and has identified China as a strategic competitor. The White House may interlink China’s abuse of rules; the trade deficit and the decline of American industry. However, this is not the case. Even without subsidies, China, like most other emerging markets, would enjoy a substantial cost advantage over the US.

Altering the global business map

The trade war is altering business equations amongst nations. According to the IMF, in 2017, EU exports to Asia were bigger than those to the US. While Asia’s exports to the EU are growing fast, making the Union increasingly more important to Asia. China is now the largest market for an expanding list of countries, including Australia, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Indonesia, among others.

Indeed, if the current growth rates of imports in the US and China hold in the next few years, by 2021 China will surpass the US to become the largest market for imports in the world, according to the IMF. Against this backdrop, Trump’s trade war is creating new impetus for the EU and Asia to speed up opening their markets to forge closer economic ties.

Need to expedite India-EU FTA

India’s exports and imports of goods and services is around 42 per cent of its GDP. Any trade war is thus likely to have implications for the country. Turkey recently imposed a 21 per cent customs duty on Indian products. Additionally, local value addition of 51 per cent in case Indian companies wish to sell their products in Turkey, forces them to create capacity in a sub-optimal manner by investing significantly in the local country.

The trade barriers that Indian textile companies face pose obstacles in their access to some of the most important markets. For over four decades, Indian manufacturers designed their production, investment and sourcing strategies around the assumption that the movement of goods across the world’s borders would continue to grow ever freer. In the process, many of them built complex, intricately linked and cost-efficient supply chains that span the globe. The US and EU markets absorb about 60 per cent of the Indian output in apparel. The country, therefore, needs to expedite an FTA with the EU.

The Knitting and Stitching Show, to be held in London’s Harrogate from November 22-25, 2018, will showcase the health benefits of arts and crafts. It will include dress-making and children’s workshops, drop in knitting and crochet class, mindfulness area, etc.

Artist Jenni Dutton will displayher series 'The Dementia Darnings' which depicts her mother's journey through life including living with dementia over the last few years. The art which is created out of fine wool explores the mother-daughter relationship along with the emotional changes of a person living with dementia.

Another display from artist Caren Garden will focus on the difficulties of eating disorders. The bedroom installation features hospital and domestic furniture, with one of the main items on display is a quilt which features a pattern designed by a talented young lady who sadly passed away after suffering from an eating disorder.

A new research on Southern European seas reveals, pollution from cellulose fibers such as cotton and linen accounted for 80 per cent of all deep-sea microfibers. Polyester microfibers accounted for just 13 per cent of the 202 microfibers identified in 29 surface sediment samples analysed, while acrylic made up 4.5 per cent. The researchers presented new data on the distribution of microfibers after a widespread survey of seabed sediments in southern European seas including the northeast Atlantic Ocean (Cantabrian Sea), the Mediterranean Sea (Alboran Sea, Catalan Sea, Cretan Sea and Levantine Sea) and the Black Sea at depths from 42 m at the continental shelf to 3,500 m in the abyssal plain.

In contrast, synthetic fibers dominate the global fiber market, with 65 per cent of the share, while natural and man-made cellulosic fibers altogether comprise only a 35 per cent. Shedding of fibers is a relatively new concept in textile development and, no studies have yet investigated microfiber shedding from cellulose vs. plastic textiles. Assuming a roughly equivalent release of fibers of each polymer to the aquatic environment, data suggest that polymer density is the key component controlling the spreading of microfibers to the deep.

Cotton Council International President Ted Schneider, at the Cotton Sourcing USA Summit, revealed plans to introduce the US Cotton Trust Protocol to help the US cotton industry meet its 2025 sustainability goals. The protocol is an integrated data collection, measurement and verification procedure which will benchmark farmers’ gains towards the industry goals and provide the global textile supply chain additional assurances that U.S. cotton is produced in a responsible manner.

The details of the Protocol are being fine-tuned, and a pilot program will be launched in 2019 and fully implemented with the 2020 cotton crop year. Participating growers would be required to adopt a data tool that allows for the quantitative measurement of key sustainability metrics, such as the FieldPrint Platform from Field to Market.

Growers would also complete a self-assessment checklist of best management practices; with a sampling of participating producers subjected to independent verification. The online interface and associated databases are currently being developed by a Memphis-based company The Seam.

Japan-based global lifestyle brand Muji will relaunch its store in Toronto, Eastern Canada. The retailer has tripled the size of the original store from 5,658 sq. ft. to 19,110 sq. ft..

Additionally, it will provide in-store customisation services including the Digital Fabric Printing Service that will enable shoppers to print a photo directly from their phone on to select Muji apparel and home fabric items, and the Laser Engraving Service, which will allow consumers to have letters engraved onto a selection of Muji products.

The new outlet will stock Muji Canada’s full range of products that includes over 4,000 items like household goods, apparel and accessories. Furthermore, a pop-up exhibition named ‘What is Muji’ will also be carried out by the retailer from November 19-23 at the retailer’s previous location. The company will showcase some of its most iconic products at the do.

US retailers and their suppliers are looking to mitigate impact of tariff on shoppers once 2019 starts. There are a variety of ways importers and shippers could offset tariff impact. Those include: sharing the cost of tariffs between importers and shippers and removing third-party fees from the landed costs of Chinese goods.

Importers could also get waivers if Chinese-made components are assembled in and shipped from a third country to the US or the third country’s components are just assembled in China. The US has imposed tariffs worth $250 billion on Chinese goods and China has imposed reciprocal duties of $110 billion on US goods. It is possible the US will impose new import duties on yet another $267 billion of Chinese goods.

This fourth tranche of import duties would likely hit a broader swathe of consumer goods such as apparel and personal electronics. The US wants China to end practices including technology transfer, subsidies to local Chinese companies and restrictions on foreign ownership that provoked the tariffs in the first place.

But China continues to resist—and in some cases reverse progress on—many promised reforms of China’s state-led economic model. The US trade deficit with China hit $375 billion last year.

Japan-based global lifestyle brand Muji will relaunch its store in Toronto, Eastern Canada. The retailer has tripled the size of the original store from 5,658 sq. ft. to 19,110 sq. ft. of space.

Additionally, it will provide in-store customisation services including the Digital Fabric Printing Service that will enable shoppers to print a photo directly from their phone on to select Muji apparel and home fabric items, and the Laser Engraving Service, which will allow consumers to have letters engraved onto a selection of Muji products.

The new outlet will stock Muji Canada’s full range of products that includes over 4,000 items like household goods, apparel and accessories.

Furthermore, a pop-up exhibition named ‘What is Muji’ will also be carried out by the retailer from November 19-23 at the retailer’s previous location. The company will showcase some of its most iconic products at the do.

RadiciGroup Performance Yarn has introduced a new Radifloor Solid BCF PA 6 1300 F68 color chart in the contract and residential flooring market with an array of yarns that are designed to reduce the environmental impact of the end product. The color chart encompasses 112 colors that are most widely used by interior designers, with a predominance of beige and grey shades, together with bright colors in many tones.

The yarns in this series have two common traits: they are all solution-dyed aimed at saving water; and branded RadiciGroup. These products boast a new feature: an accurate sampling service for customers, the company explains. Besides fitted carpet, the Radifloor Solid BCF PA 6 1300 F68 yarn is suitable for the manufacture of standard 50x50-cm tufted carpet tiles. The yarn provides ample design margins: the individual tones available can be blended, mixed and balanced to produce a large variety of colors, which the designer’s creativity can transform into carpet motifs and designs.