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To ensure material for sustainable development, many textile and garment enterprises in Vietnam are investing in textile and dyeing complexes. And to avail themselves of business opportunities from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement, many textile and garment firms have started building textile and dyeing complexes over the last two years. For instance, 10 enterprises have invested hundreds of millions of US dollars in those complexes in southern Binh Duong Province.
However, US President-elect Donald Trump said his country would leave the TPP but investment to those industrial complexes would still continue for long-term development strategies. Esquel Garment Manufacturing Vietnam has operated in Vietnam for 10 years and mainly imported material from China. In 2015, the company invested in a textile and dyeing factory in Binh Duong for availing business opportunities from the TPP. The factory has completed construction of the building in the first stage and it will begin operations in a year.
With information emerging that the US could leave the TPP, the company would carefully consider its investment plans for the factory in the second and third stages. However, Nguyen Van Luong, DG of Esquel Garment Manufacturing Vietnam said that the decision on investment was under the company’s long-term development strategy in Vietnam but not only for TPP.
Textile and garment enterprises said TPP has prompted them to increase investment in textile and dyeing for production of garment products. In the long-term, development of textile and dyeing would help Vietnam complete its production process for garment products and avoid dependence on material imports as being done at present.
The made-up sector in India will get production incentives and subsidies similar to what the garment sector gets. Made-ups include products like towels, bed sheets, blankets, curtains, crochet laces, pillow covers, towels, zari, embroidery articles and this is the second largest employer in the textile sector after apparel.
The permissible overtime has been increased up to 100 hours per quarter in the made-up manufacturing sector. Employees’ contribution to EPF has been made optional for employees earning less than Rs 15,000 per month. These incentives are part of the Rs 6,006 crores package announced for the apparel sector in June and are expected to help India in creating huge employment, earning foreign exchange and creating traction for the fabric and yarn sectors.
An additional 3.67 per cent share of employer’s contribution in addition to the 8.33 per cent covered under the Pradhan Mantri Rozgar Protsahan Yojana will be given for all new employees enrolling in EPFO for the first three years of employment as a special incentive to the made-up sector. Since the maximum sourcing done by the made-up sector is from domestic industry, it will also help in the Make in India plan. The capital investment subsidy rate for made-ups has been increased to 25 per cent with value cap revised to Rs 50 crores.
VF Corporation has announced that Karl Heinz Salzburger, Vice President & Group President, VF International will retire at the end of 2017. The company is a global leader in branded lifestyle apparel, footwear and accessories. Through the first quarter of 2017, Salzburger will remain in his current position when he will become a special advisor to the CEO. He would focus on a successful transition of responsibilities in the company’s international organization.
During his 19-year stint with VF Corp, Salzburger’s he displayed extraordinary leadership skills and measurable success in building and growing VF’s international business which today represents about 36 per cent of the company’s total global sales. All throughout, he has been a driving force behind VF’s business expansion around Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Asia-Pacific region. During his nine year tenure, the company’s business more than doubled in size.
After Salzburger’s resignation, Aidan O’Meara will assume the role of Vice President & Group President, VF International and will serve on the company’s operating and executive committees. O’Meara was named President of the Asia-Pacific region in 2007 with responsibility to build a new organization in the region and develop a shared infrastructure to support expansion of VF’s brands. Under his leadership, VF today has an established presence in China and seven other countries in the region.
Going by the interest shown by world technology leaders at the ongoing India ITME 2016, the textiles landscape in India is about to change. The Indian textile industry is adopting latest technologies to cater to global demand in textiles.
To prove a point, participation from 38 countries, huge amount of foreign visitors and an overwhelming participation by Indian manufacturers of textile machinery is perhaps a testimony of the mood of domestic textile industry. Textile consumption within India is growing at a fast pace. Also, with China’s share in world textiles trade about seven times more than that of that of India, Indian manufacturers are sensing an opportunity in exports. The six-day exhibition is witnessing dozens of product launches and proving to be an effective platform for joint ventures and collaborations between stakeholders of textile industry in India and overseas.
Speaking at TexSummit 2016, Sanjiv Lathia, Chairman, India ITME Society said the biggest change in the next five years will be higher automation in all machines leading to better quality products for the ends users. He said he also expected advanced technology machines to be available from Indian manufacturers.
Among the visitors are foreign as well as domestic business leaders, academicians, research scholars, government officials from countries such as Philippians, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Iran, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, Poland, Malaysia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt. India is not only a strong market but is also explored as a hub for training and skill development by many countries for textiles and textile engineering.
As a part of the proposed FTA or otherwise, India and the EU are in disagreement over whether to negotiate a bilateral investment treaty (BIT) for mutual protection and promotion of investments. The EU wants the two to enter into a BIT as soon as possible followed by the FTA as individual investment protection agreements signed by its member-countries with India have already started to lapse.
The EU has also urged India to allow existing BITs to continue till a new one is negotiated. EU officials, who met senior officials from Department of Economic Affairs and Commerce Department last month discussed the matter and are now expected to respond on how the FTA negotiations should proceed.
Due to disagreement between the two sides over contentious issues such as lowering of import duties on automobiles and alcohol by India and recognition of India by the EU as a ‘data-secure’ country, the proposed India-EU FTA, officially known as the broad-based trade and investment agreement, is stuck for the last few years. The FTA, which would focus on goods and services, will also have a separate chapter on investments which would include measures for its promotion and protection. India’ BIT with Netherlands has already lapsed on November 30 and similar agreements with most other EU member countries are set to lapse in the first half of next year.
In order to avoid a string of litigations it has been facing over the last few years from global companies, New Delhi has come up with a model BIT draft based on which it now seeks to re-negotiate all its existing investment agreements. It understandably doesn’t want to give extensions to the existing agreements that lapse.
Vibrant Gujarat will be held from January 10 to 13, 2017 in Ghandhi nagar. The event will focus on sustainable economic and social development and is expected to be attended by over two million people from around the world. The global summit will provide visitors an opportunity to interact with key policy makers, industry leaders, global thought leaders, regulators and renowned academicians from all over the world.
Besides giving stakeholders of various sectors a chance to witness coherent deliberations between sector experts and global luminaries in an array of knowledge seminars, the summit will offer a platform to small and medium enterprises to connect globally with potential partners to explore opportunities of collaboration and partnership.
Networking forums like B2B and B2G meetings will help stakeholders interact with each other and exclusive demo sessions showcasing the latest trends and technology, products and services across sectors will also be held at the summit.
Gujarat boasts over 600 medium and large textile processing houses and contributes to over one-fourth of India’s technical textile output. The state has about 1,500 medium and large textile units featuring 18 textile related product clusters. It is the largest producer of man-made and filament fabric in India and the second largest decentralised power loom concentrating state with 50,000 cotton looms.
While helping turn Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar into bigger destinations for exports, China's investments are transforming its smaller Southeast Asian neighbours. This is driving some of the world's fastest economic growth rates and providing Chinese companies with low-cost alternatives as they seek to move capacity out of the country.
The move is also helping Asia's largest economy and nations to what looks more and more like a new era of waning US commitment to the region from a more inward-looking administration. China is investing in everything from railroads to real estate in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the frontier-market Asean economies. In Cambodia, China Minsheng Investment Group and LYP Group, headed by Senator Ly Yong Phat, signed a $1.5 billion deal last week to build a 2,000 ha city near the country’s the capital, Phnom Penh with a convention centre, hotels and golf course, it is reported. The spending equals roughly one-tenth of the country's $15.9 billion gross domestic product.
In landlocked Laos, work started last year on the China-Laos railway which will stretch 414 kms from the border to the capital Vientiane. The project, part of Chinese President Xi Jinping's One Belt, One Road initiative, will cost US$5.4 billion. Myanmar, which is liberalising its economy and adopting market reforms after a transition to democracy, is forecast by the IMF to expand 8.1 per cent this year, the fastest in the world after Iraq.
Arvind gets Asia’s Best First Time Sustainability Report award at the recently concluded 2016 Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards (ASRA) in Singapore. India’s leading lifestyle and fashion conglomerate was also declared joint winner in Asia’s Best Materiality reporting category in which it shared the award with Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation.
Commenting on the award, chairman Arvind Limited, Sanjay Lalbhai said he felt proud to win Asia’s Best First Time Sustainability Report, 2016. The win reiterates the conglomerate’s commitment towards sustainability. Sixty eight companies from 14 countries made it to the final round of 2016 Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards. The finalists were shortlisted by members of an independent judging panel.
Hosted in Singapore, the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards (ASRA) are the highest recognition for sustainability reporting in the region. To encourage more Asian companies to embrace sustainability reporting, CSR Works International, a Singapore-based sustainability firm, has created the Asia Sustainability Reporting Awards. The awards are CSR Works International’s not-for-profit initiative and are part of its own corporate responsibility programme.
More than 170 delegates from as five countries attended the flagship event by GOTS in Dhaka on November 23. They also took part in a national seminar on GOTS Certification. These included international brands and retailers, manufacturers and exporters. Representatives of the Bangladesh government, certification bodies and professionals from testing, chemical compliance, media, trade associations, NGOs, academics and consultants took part in the seminar.
The theme of the conference was: ‘Business Case for Sustainability with Organic Textiles’. Out of the more than 3,800 facilities that GOTS has certified worldwide, more than 400 are in Bangladesh alone. This happens to be the 5th highest number of GOTS certified facilities worldwide.
In his welcome address, Sumit Gupta, GOTS representative in Bangladesh and India appreciated the Bangladesh textile industry for its perseverance and consistent efforts to achieve both quality and quantity in their products and exports. The industry has been successful in maintaining consistent growth in export for last several years. Gupta also talked about the ambitious target of local textile industry to achieve $50 billion in RMG exports and encouraged the industry to use sustainability and GOTS as a tool to help them achieve this goal.
"In order to build a new business model for cotton farming, an American is working together with Indian farmers. More than 50 per cent of India’s population is in agriculture and related industries. They make up nearly 20 per cent of the country’s GDP. Yet, stories of farmer suicides have been plaguing the country throughout the last 5 years. In 2013, for instance, nearly 12,000 farmers committed suicide; that would be on average more than 40 deaths a day."
In order to build a new business model for cotton farming, an American is working together with Indian farmers. More than 50 per cent of India’s population is in agriculture and related industries. They make up nearly 20 per cent of the country’s GDP. Yet, stories of farmer suicides have been plaguing the country throughout the last 5 years. In 2013, for instance, nearly 12,000 farmers committed suicide; that would be on average more than 40 deaths a day.
Cotton is one of India’s specialty crops; India is also the second largest producer of cotton, after China. Yet more than 90 per cent of cotton is produced using conventional methods and with GMO seeds. The trouble with GMO seeds is that they cannot be used over and over again. That means farmers have to invest more to buy more seeds after every harvest. As a matter of fact, organic farming would have disappeared if ChetCo wouldn’t have pushed for it.
The Hyderabad-based Chetna cooperative set up six seed banks in the last two years — all are concentrated in
Orissa where cotton has become a cash crop in
recent times. The seed banks are helping bring back a collection of non-GMO seeds to the Indian subcontinent. Seeds are only the first step, though. Historically, organic cotton farmers have sold their organic harvest for conventional prices because of a lack of demand. The Chetna Co-op was built to not only facilitate organic cotton farming in the country, but also help these farmers find a market.
How did it start?
Three years ago, New York-based Godfrey was working at Loomstate, an American brand selling organic cotton clothing sourced from India. While Loomstate was one of the small number of companies interested in rectifying the cotton supply chain, Rhett Godfrey, Founder of the Chetna Coalition realised there was power in numbers. So at the Textile Exchange’s Organic Cotton Round Table in Istanbul, Turkey, he asked other clothing retailers to commit a percentage of their supply chain to organic cotton, sourced from the Chetna Cooperative. 80 per cent of the brands were not interested. They said, go do it first and then come back to us.
ChetCo is aiming to build a CSA model. In the past three years, ChetCo’s membership has been doubled, and they are buying 320 per cent more cotton fibres. As a result, the co-op’s organic cotton sales have gone from 17 per cent (in 2013) to more than 49 per cent (in 2015/16 harvest).
Besides Loomstate, there are about a dozen brands working on organic cotton supply chain. They include Boll and Branch, a New Jersey-based company, that produces organic cotton bedding, towels, and blankets; PACT, specialising in the basics (undies, camis, leggings); Nudie Jeans, a Swedish brand with retail outlets in the US, making organic cotton denims. For them, the smaller the better mantra works the best and they are in hurry to expand their horizons, which can be challenging at this juncture. For them, growth has to come with social welfare.
In this line, Colorado-based PACT has invested in the infrastructure of these cotton-growing communities by updating tribal boarding schools for girls, giving them bikes to get to & fro, providing business training for women, and supporting cooperative training and research. The result has been lower drop-out rates and more girls staying in school.
Currently, 16 brands have committed to ChetCo, working with nearly 35,000 small-scale organic cotton farmers and 2,000 garment workers. By 2015, the company had produced over two million organic cotton items using this supply chain. These numbers definitely indicate sings of good times, yet the rest is up to the fashion police to put across the message of promoting such businesses with social cause.
