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When one talks about the thriving of Bangladeshi denim, the fact that comes into the fore is that there is lot of technical innovation and an increased focus on social responsibility in the country. The production of denim in Bangladesh has slowly come of age over the last few years. As a matter of fact, denim manufacturing in Bangladesh is on the rise. In the last five years, an equal number of new denim factories have come on the horizon while five more are set to open soon. In 2014, the country’s denim industry grew 15.5 per cent year-on-year and 8 per cent in 2015, a data compiled by the Bangladesh Textile Mills Association (BTMA) shows.
Western brands, such as H&M, Levi’s, Zara, River Island and Wrangler, source denim from Bangladesh. On the other hand, Marks & Spencer describes the country as a key market for denim production. And, as the number of technologically advanced factories rises, the industry looks set to grow even further. For some time, the sourcing landscape in Bangladesh has been plagued by uncertainties like issues of sustainability political upheaval and the treatment of workers have left the industry with a damaged reputation. However, advances in technology along with a new focus on social responsibility and continuing low costs are making the denim sourcing scene in Bangladesh increasingly appealing to brands of all sizes.
In drought-prone Gujarat, the conventional wisdom is that more water means more crops. And to grow more crops, one has to give up the age-old methods and learn new techniques, keep knowledge of the same and adopt new methods of farming. This is what Cotton Connect has been providing to famers of village Ranmalpur in Gujarat. It is financed by Irish clothing retailer, Primark that operates in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy and India among others.
Primark's involvement in the village program is part of its efforts to improve ethical standards in the retail brand's £19 billion business which sources most of its garments from developing countries. Already 1,251 women have participated in the retailer's schemes which include yield-increasing programmes and healthcare drives. The company hopes to increase that figure to 10,000 in the next six years.
Although Primark does not have a figure of how much cotton it buys, it is the most common fabric that is used in its clothes. And though the company buys no cotton directly from farmers, its long-term strategy is to ensure all the cotton in its supply chain is sourced sustainably. After China, India is the world's second largest producer of cotton. The majority of the world's 100 million cotton farmers are smallholders in developing countries. Far away from the city, the industry can be brutal to farmers who face competition from unfair world prices and unscrupulous middle men. Many farmers find themselves caught in a vicious cycle of debt and poverty.
For farmers, the challenges range from the impact of climate change, poor prices for seed cotton, by way of competition from highly subsidised producers in rich countries.
Amsterdam-based Kingpins has ended its first ever China city tour. Happy with its first visit that the company is making plans to return to the country. Starting with a show in Guangzhou on September 19, the Kingpins tour traveled to Hangzhou on September 21 and finished in Zhengzhou on September 23. More than 224 companies and 607 buyers attended and shopped at the shows. Based on the success of the tour, Kingpins announced it will return to China next September with bigger shows and more segments in Guangzhou, Xiamen and Hangzhou. It will tour the country from September 18 to 22, 2017.
Kingpins’ concept for the inaugural tour combined global perspective with intimate and beautiful settings which the show reported went off well with the Chinese brands, designers and manufacturers. Attendees include: Able Jeans, Adwin, C&A, Wrangler, Zara, Trendy Group, Bossini, Lilanz, Essay and Etam.
Global trend expert Amy Leverton was in tow with Kingpins’ team during the China City Tour to present her denim trend overview of the Chinese market. Leverton’s presentation was the first time such high-level denim research was created exclusively to meet the needs of the Chinese market.
In order to maintain competitiveness of the country’s textile and textile products in the global market, the Indonesian Textile Association (API) has urged local players to regularly upgrade their production facilities. Most textile makers in the country rely on old machineries and are reluctant to invest more in the backdrop of weakening global demand, says API chairman, Ade Sudrajat.
Sudrajat has also asked the government to facilitate collaboration between local businesses and textile machinery manufacturers in India, deemed as one of leading nations in the industry, to deal with the issue. Indonesia and India can deepen their cooperation by providing credit facilities for the purchase of textile machinery. Indonesian textile exports have failed to make significant progress over the last five years partly due to declining orders from the country’s main trading partners, including Japan and the US. Data shows textile exports have remained stagnant at around $13 billion since 2011. Another reason to choose India as a trading partner, was because the price of textile machinery was as cheap as China-made ones.
In a trademark infringement case relating to one of its products, Century Textiles and Industries has gone to court against e-commerce marketplace Snapdeal, its founders Rohit Bansal and Kunal Bahl and Modicare, the K K Modi Group company in the Bombay High Court. Despite several notices to the e-commerce company, the BK Birla Group company has alleged that Modicare was selling ‘dhoti’, a garment worn by Hindu men, under the brand name of ‘Paramsukh’ which is a registered trademark of the Birla’s since 1942. The ‘dhoti’ is being sold under the same name on Snapdeal.com, the textile major alleged. The case was filed on October 4 and was listed for October 14, Court filings show.
In its petition, the Mumbai-based company said the trademark Paramsukh is widely recognised and that the impugned mark as sought to be used by Modicare is deceptively similar to its registered trademark. This is likely to result in confusion, it remarked and also accused the K K Modi group company of passing off its products as that of Century Textiles.
As per intellectual property rights laws, passing off refers to making a false representation that is likely to induce consumers to believe that the goods or services are those of another. The plea also said that Snapdeal, operated by Jasper Infotech, was not ready and willing to provide the details of the seller trading on its website for which they receive commission.
At a meeting of the GST Council, the Centre has proposed four slabs for the Goods and Services Tax (GST) in addition to a cess on sin and luxury goods. This will help the government raise close to Rs 50,000 crores to compensate states for any possible revenue loss under the new tax regime. The proposed slabs are of 6 per cent, 12 per cent, 18 per cent and 26 per cent along with a 4 per cent levy on gold. For environmentally sensitive items such as coal and sin goods (A sin good is that that is deemed harmful to society) such as aerated drinks, tobacco and pan masala and luxury cars and watches, a higher cess has been suggested, it is learnt.
The cess will make sure that the levy on these items is not changed and the money raised will flow into a special fund to meet compensation requirements. While the cess on coal would fetch Rs 26,000 crores annually, the tax on sin and luxury goods is expected to help the Centre mop up another Rs 24,000 crores. Although goods- or services-wise classification will only be done once the states agree to the slabs, consumer durables and a large number of FMCG products are expected to be in the 26 per cent bracket. It is said that the intent was to work out slabs in a way that the overall burden on the consumer came down.
Currently, the total levy on consumer durables added up to around 27 per cent along with another 4 per cent burden due to central sales tax (CST). Under the proposed regime, the burden will reduce to 26 per cent. It is said that nearly a quarter of the burden due to CST and octroi would be abolished while the Krishi Kalyan cess would be included in the overall GST levy. Last year, the states collected Rs 4.4 lakh crore of which CST and octroi added up to around Rs 1 lakh crore.
The 12th International Conference on Apparel & Home Textiles (ICAHT-2016) was held in New Delhi on October 15. The theme of the conference was ‘Innovate, integrate and motivate’ – the three major requirements for the Indian apparel industry. The conference was organized by Okhla Textile and Garment Cluster (OGTC), a prominent organization of Delhi-NCR-based apparel exporters that helps promote the industry and works for its collective growth.
At the conference, Aisshvarya S. Shah CEO & Chief Trainer, Work Senses spoke on ‘HR – A Business Partner’, while Ranjiv Kapur, COO, Triburg discussed on ‘A Turnaround Journey – Cost profitability’. Cost Management in World Class Manufacturing was discussed by Charles Dagher of Dagher Consulting Group while ‘Strategy to Improve Profitability in Garment Industry’ was the focus area of Prashant Agarwal, Business JMD, Wazir Advisors. Hiroshi Tachikawa, MD, Propharm Japan Co. Ltd. shared his views on ‘Principles of Material Flow Cost Accounting’. Industry experts also discussed various other aspects of merchandising. KK Jalan, secretary, ministry of MSME and Ashok. G. Rajani, chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) were the chief guest and guest of honour respectively at the event. ICAHT is a platform for the owners of apparel export houses and middle-level management where they participate and try to learn new things.
The next Ispo Munich, the outdoor and sports-dedicated trade show will be held at Messe München Center, Munich from February 5-8, 2017. The organizers Ispo Munich, has introduced a new concept for its action sports hall to be called Polygon. The hall will be partitioned based on a new, standardized format.
In terms of design, Polygon will feature a honeycomb-like hexagonal structure with pre-fabricated modules with low partition walls across the exhibition area that will be ideal for a more welcoming, networking-boosting environment. This particular framework, was earlier tested by the organizers in the Health & Fitness and vision segments, was widely appreciated.
The booths would be positioned along a central aisle to encourage discussion between the stall attendants and attendees. Every day, there will be an after-work programme on the aisle with activities such as live music and exhibitions. In a move intended to reflect real market conditions and ensure exciting synergy effects, Polygon will host manufacturers of snowboards and skateboards along with urban and street sports products and sneakers. Ispo Munich will offer four different stand possibilities with full-package prices so that both small brands and global players co-exist in the same space. For more than 40 years, Ispo Munich has consistently strengthened its leading position: it is a global platform for the industry and popular meeting place for sports business professionals from all over the world, driving innovation and hosting exciting events.
Brussesls hosteed the European Textiles conference (going digital, going high-tech) on October 12 and 13. Nearly 150 participants from 24 countries attended the two day event. The key highlight of the event, organised by the European Technology Platform for the Future of Textiles and Clothing (Textile ETP), was the unveiling of the Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA).
The SIRA outlines the major innovation themes and research priorities which are expected to drive and shape the future of the textile and clothing sector in Europe in the coming decade. It has been jointly developed by over 100 textile industry, technology and research experts from across Europe.
The document, entitled ‘Towards a 4th Industrial Revolution of Textiles and Clothing’. expresses the conviction that the interplay of technology trends such as digitization and automation, market trends such as growing technical textile applications and more demand for sustainable fashion products and new business models such as circular and sharing economy concepts and personalized product-services, will provide a new basis for a more knowledge-intensive, growing and more profitable textile and clothing industry in Europe.
Representatives of the European Commission detailed the policies and programs in place to provide support to the industry for more research in materials, manufacturing technologies, digitisation and new business models; a stronger sectoral education and training provision and investment in clusters and other innovation support mechanisms at regional level.
The strong presence of the textile machinery sector through companies such as Brückner, Lindauer Dornier and Picanol underlined the importance of a close collaboration between world-leading Europe-based technology developers and their local lead industry customers to exploit advantages arising from greater resource efficiency, digitisation and new material processing. The conference also featured a number of new companies that exploit research know-how and advanced technologies for revolutionary textile based products for the health, construction, energy protection or outdoor markets.
India's indigenously developed hybrid quality cotton variety, Shanker-6, is being globally threatened by African cotton and Peru Pima cotton. On production front, India beat China in 2015-16 to emerge as the world's largest cotton producer. But in the absence of any branding efforts of its prominent Shanker-6 variety, international clients are increasingly turning towards Africa, Peru and the US, who have in recent times engaged in branding activities.
Lack of global branding of the medium staple high quality Shanker-6 could lead to sluggish export demand going forward. A strong concern about price and volume has meant that India has ignored branding efforts. Moreover, there are no standards set which could help in brand promotion and there are no norms.
One reason for the lack of branding is the relatively higher share of domestic consumption of cotton in India. India exports around 15 to 20 per cent of its total cotton production while the US exports over 70 per cent of its total production. In addition, high adulteration in Shanker-6 has also hurt India’s cotton image worldwide.
While Africa has in recent times consciously branded its cotton, especially from Sudan, Peru, too, has been conducting promotional activities globally and portraying its Pima cotton as a worldwide brand.
