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World’s leading biotechnology firms are mulling with the idea of merging themselves. But this could sound an alarming bell because the merger could result in steep increases in the price farmers pay for cotton seed and small increases in corn and soybean seed. This could potentially lead to increased consumer prices for food and fiber, according to a study by the Agricultural and Food Policy Center at Texas A&M University. The study was included as part of a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the subject of consolidation in the US seed and agrochemical industry.
Both the Texas Corn Producers Association and Southwest Council of Agribusiness requested the study after the announcements of proposed mergers between DuPont and Dow as well as Monsanto and Bayer. On the other hand, corn could see an expected seed price increase of 2.3 per cent followed by the price of soybean seed of 1.9 per cent, the study noted. It is natural that when seed price increase, it would result in increased consumer prices.
The Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PHMA) has severely criticised the government’s attitude towards continuously declining exports over the last few years. PHMA’s newly-elected chairman Mohammad Adil Butt bemoaned that even the benefits of GSP Plus status could not be of any help to the industry.
The results of body’s elections were also announced. While Muhammad Amjad Khawaja was elected as senior vice chairman, Mohammad Younus Sony was elected as vice chairman. Besides this, Haji Mohammad Shafi of Faisalabad was unanimously elected as chief patron of PHMA (North Zone).
The newly-elected members of Central Executive Committee are Mohammad Mushtaq Mangat, Naseer Ahmad Butt, Syed Nahid Abbass, Javed Iqbal and Khawaja Musharraf Iqbal. Members elected on zonal committee include Usman Jawaad, Mohammad Imtiaz Ali, Naeem Ahmed, Dr Khurram Anwar Khawaja, Sheikh Mohammad Sarwat Kapoor and Mian Khalid Pervez. The newly-elected office-bearers will take their offices on October 1.
Cotton Council International will hold a seminar in Mumbai, September 29, on the cotton and cotton textile industry in India. The seminar will bring together experts from each segment of the supply chain to discuss raw material planning in today’s dynamic consumer environment. Cotton represents about one-third of world fiber usage and has been one of the most sustainable fibers for more than 7,000 years, used to clothe and nurture mankind. Spinning mills have catered to the needs of changing fashion and have made cotton a trend setting fiber.
India is considered as a spinner’s hub, with close to 52 million spindles and the capacity to produce 4.7 million tons of spun yarn. Indian spinning mills have been importing various varieties of cotton from across the globe. In apparel and home fashion, quality begins with the fiber. Supima, often known as the cashmere of cotton, is a special extra-long staple fiber grown in the US, known for its softness, strength, brilliance and lasting colors. Supima cotton is a key ingredient in manufacturing premium and luxury goods.
Indian textile mills are the top consumers of extra long staple cotton. In 2015-16 global textile mills consumed more than 4,25,000 tons of ELS cotton with India consuming 1,45,000 tons.
Hundreds of thousands of workers in Bangladesh are said to be making clothes for Swedish retailer H&M in dangerous conditions. Washington-based Workers Rights Consortium says there are severe safety hazards, including a lack of fire doors, fire exits, proper alarm systems and sprinkler systems. H&M became the first company to sign the Bangladesh Accord, which came about after the 2013 collapse of Rana Plaza, a building that housed several garment factories.
Considered the country’s worst industrial disaster, the collapse killed more than 1,130 people and brought international attention to the safety of garment workers. H&M is also said to have not followed up on its promises on labor rights and human rights. Last year H&M released a statement defending its progress, stating it only produced in factories that met standards required under the legally binding Bangladesh Accord and it was working to address safety concerns in its factories.
However, the company conceded that it experienced delays in upgrade work due to problems in deliveries of upgraded fire doors and sprinklers as well as a heavy workload for Accord inspection experts. H&M has contracts with 1,900 factories that employ 1.6 million workers. There are 4,100 H&M stores worldwide and another are 400 due to open this year.
Though Vietnam’s exports of textile-garment of increased in the first eight months of the year but it was a tad slower than the same period last year. The country shipped textile-garment products worth $18.7 billion in the January-August period (up 4.4 per cent) year-on-year, according to the Vietnam Cotton and Spinning Association (VCOSA).
VCOSA vice chairman Nguyen Hong Giang observed that due to a lack of orders and falling demand from global markets, growth slowed down compared to previous years. If the rough situation continues, things will get harder. Then it will be difficult for the sector to earn revenue of $29 billion this year which is even lower the target of $31 billion set earlier this year, Giang said. Decrease in export orders resulted from mounting competition from rivals including China, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. In addition, Cambodia and Myanmar enjoy tax incentives when selling textile-garment products to the European Union (EU), making their products even more competitive. Besides competition, domestic apparel firms are grappling with difficulties, brought about by the minimum wage rise and regulations on inspections.
Fewer FDI approvals have been registered for the textile and garment industry this year than in previous years. In 2014 and 2015, many foreign enterprises had shown interest in investing in the sector to capitalize on opportunities from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement which allows firms to enjoy tax breaks when exporting products to member states.
The recent spurt in cotton prices has resulted in higher input costs for the spinning sector in India. So the Cotton Corporation of India will sell its existing stock purchased under the minimum support price to spinning mills in the micro, small and medium enterprise category.
The industry is expecting a heavy squeeze on margins as the demand-supply imbalance is stoking cotton imports and new crop arrival is delayed due to late sowing of cotton.
Most spinners are likely to run short of raw material before the new crop arrives.
The cotton demand-supply imbalance is likely to last till November due to the late sowing owing to the delayed rains this year.
Prices are up 30 per cent in spot markets and likely to further increase due to the demand and supply imbalance.
The spinning industry is in dire need of fiscal incentives.
The demand- supply imbalance has fuelled cotton contracts for imports from Australia, Brazil, Pakistan, West Africa and the US. But most firms are not in a position to enter import contracts as shipments will be delayed and prices are on the rise.
Yarn manufacturers are likely to be the worst affected as moderate demand has left little scope for a rise in prices of products.
"Gone are the days when fast fashion brands could lure customers to the store to possess the most inspirational label. Even a decade back every teenager’s dream was own a Calvin Klein, a Ralph Lauren or a Tommy Hilfiger. Each has a distinctive style well portrayed in glossy advertisements to create the aspiration in the consumer psyche."
Gone are the days when fast fashion brands could lure customers to the store to possess the most inspirational label. Even a decade back every teenager’s dream was own a Calvin Klein, a Ralph Lauren or a Tommy Hilfiger. Each has a distinctive style well portrayed in glossy advertisements to create the aspiration in the consumer psyche. Today the scenario has changed. Interestingly these attractive, million dollar ads somehow fail to create similar excitement which has resulted in plunging sales. In fact, a few legendary American brands which pioneered ‘fast fashion’ and ‘aspirational brand’ are now facing a downward spiral in sales, giving a clear indication towards shifting consumer psyche. Brands like Calvin Klein, Michael Kors, Tommy Hilfiger and Ralph Lauren are coping with slow sales and shutting down stores.
Biggies suffered from being class to mass
Analysing the changed market behavior, Charles Lawry, a professor at Pace University's business school specializing in studying luxury market says “high-end American brands have been creating cheaper products for decades now. Ralph Lauren was one of the first American luxury brands to reach across many different categories, and that is really what made it successful. For a time, this strategy was extremely lucrative; soon, other brands followed suit, including MK by Michael Kors and Donna Karan's DKNY”. During early 2000s, fashion brands like Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, and Coach became public company while by 2010, Phillips Van Heusen Corp owned both Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. With new set of investors coming on board, almost all companies were forced to explore the bigger market instead of the niche luxury segment. To sustain the growth brands lowered the cost of manufacturing to making the brand accessible to new a wider spectrum of consumers. “There was an over-expansion and distribution into places like factory stores, which presented a tremendous economic opportunity. But it came at the expense of the brand. If you start training the consumer to believe that the brand is widely distributed in factory outlets, people who were once your core customer will start doing that, or lose interest in the brand altogether” says Eric Korman, Ralph Lauren's president of digital and e-commerce between 2010-2014.
Dip in sales was also a result of low skilled manpower engage in manufacturing set up in countries like Vietnam and China. With globalization and an effort to cut cost by going overseas, these megabrands that were once known for high quality started to see their quality deplete and decay. Moreover, in 2008, the US economy hit new lows due to recession. During the recession and post-recession, these brands went further by having a lot of these products trickle down to discount retailers. Now there's nothing remotely glamorous about picking up that same Coach bag in a messy, overcrowded department store with harsh lighting and thousands upon thousands of mass-produced articles.
New Age brands take on the giants
Over the last few years, the market dynamics has changed with a new generation of high quality, reasonably priced and direct to consumer brand coming up. Big brands were focused to tap wider customers and in the process lose their uniqueness. Startup companies too saw this opportunity to redefine premium fashion and educate customers about how high-end goods are made. The internet did not made it easier to buy products online. Another important distinction between these fashion startups and older apparel companies is that they are much less flashy. The internet has democratized brands. People are willing to pay for something special and they want to know how their products are made and, these days, it is possible to find exactly what they are looking for online. Now, the big question is whether the once great American brands can right their ships and regain consumer trust by improving quality, cutting back distribution channels, and speaking to the world in a more relatable voice.
Under Armour, the US-based performance brand has chosen Lectra as an official partner for its manufacturing and design centre, the Lighthouse, which opened in Baltimore, Maryland. Under Armour is a leader in performance footwear, apparel and equipment which sells its apparel and footwear products worldwide to athletes at all levels. Lectra is a leader in integrated technology solutions dedicated to industries using fabrics, leather, technical textiles and composite materials.
The new facility will showcase the latest technology and serve as an incubator for creating state-of-the-art product with efficient manufacturing methods. Lectra shares Under Armour's commitment to helping manufacturers and brands attain operational excellence and deliver better products to market faster.
The Lighthouse will employ Lectra's advanced cutting-room solutions, in particular, the Brio fabric spreader and the Vector fabric-cutting machine. It will provide a collaborative space for designers and manufacturers to learn and develop new and innovative methods for making and delivering product, which can then be shared with global teammates and partner factories.
Lectra’s innovative Smart Services provides enhanced visibility to the production processes through remote monitoring. This predictive technology is designed to optimize machine up-time and production.
A new type of fabric could change the way smart clothing is made. The space cloth is the first non-woven material made from yarn with strong potential for use as a smart textile due to its unique structure, with space to encase copper wiring, LEDs and more. Because of the material’s linear channels of yarn, it has great potential to be used as a smart textile. In particular, it lends itself well to being embedded with microcapsules containing medication or scent, to either help deliver drugs to specific parts of the body or to create antibacterial and aromatic clothing.
The material has potential in other applications as well, such as wall coverings, in addition to clothing. It is also not quite as challenging to make as other knit or weave fabrics, which makes its production easier on the environment.
The space cloth is called Zephlinear, comes from the merger of two words, zephyr and linear. It was given the nickname space cloth due to its appearance and its e-textile capabilities. The material is strongest and most efficient when created from natural yarns, such as 100 per cent wool, hair or wool and silk mixtures, but it can also be made from synthetic yarns.
Senthil Kumar has been re-elected chairman of the Southern India Mills' Association (SIMA) the apex body of textile mills. Kumar has over 40 years of experience in the textile field. He has been actively serving the industry with his participation in various national and state level textile forums. He was the chairman of the Powerloom Development and Export Promotion Council from December 2002 to January 2005. He is the promoter, chairman and managing director of Palladam Hi-tech Weaving Park.
Kumar is also the director, Confederation of Indian Textile Industry, New Delhi, director, Apparel, Made Ups and Home Furnishing Sector Skill Council, Haryana, director, Textiles Sector Skill Council, New Delhi, and managing director, BKS Textiles.
SIMA was set up in 1933. SIMA is the single largest employers’ organisation representing the organised textile industry in the world and the only employers’ organisation of the textile industry having in-house expertise to advise right from designing the textile project to marketing. Equipped with a strong data base, it advises members on all functional areas of the textile industry. SIMA has made unique contributions in the areas of industrial relations, human resource development, industrial engineering etc. It plays a lead role in all textile policy making bodies in South India including Planning Commission work group relating to textiles.
