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All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) management has termed the revised export package by the government a step in the right direction to overcome national trade deficit. The management has appreciated the initiative and concerted efforts of Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and efforts of Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, Federal Commerce and Textile Minister Pervaiz Malik, Advisor to Prime Minister for Finance Miftah Ismail and for Revenue Haroon Akhtar in finalizing the amendment in export package.
The Economic Co-ordination Committee (ECC) of the cabinet has approved the export package in a bid to give a boost to shrinking exports of the country. Under the package, 50 per cent of the incentive will be offered to eligible textile and non-textile exporters on the same terms as given for the period January to June 2017 without the condition of 10 per cent increase in shipments. The remaining 50 per cent of the incentive will be provided if an exporter achieves increase of 10 per cent or more in shipments compared to the corresponding period of the previous year.
The APTMA management has lauded the prime minister for his prompt action to address the rising trade deficit and taking a decision to amend the export-led growth package in the larger interest of the country. It says that the APTMA has always concerned about the issue while sincerely believing that reviving exports rather than borrowing again and again to discharge liabilities can be the only answer to the problem.
Aamir Fayyaz hoped the industry will regain its position in the international market with early availability of regionally competitive energy price, liquidation of pending sales tax refunds and a fast track implementation of the export growth package. The APTMA management looks forward to present the textile industry viewpoint to the prime minister on issues concerning the restoration of viability and further investment to increase production, employment and exports.
American company Michael Kors is buying the UK luxury footwear brand Jimmy Choo. Kors is acquiring the firm through a wholly-owned subsidiary. Jimmy Choo has been powering ahead in recent periods with the company’s latest half-year results showing it grow sales and margins ahead of the market. It also boosted accessories as a percentage of its overall sales as it has continued to diversify beyond its core footwear offer with bags and sunglasses proving popular. And its men’s business continued to be its fastest growing unit.
The company recorded growth in almost all regions in the latest half, which is bound to be a plus for its soon-to-be new owner. US-based Kors is a global handbag and apparel empire. The label offers clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry, accessories, sunglasses and watches. Men can choose from tailored shirts, sweaters, vests, jackets, pants, wallets, card cases, messengers and totes. For women there are fit and flare, sheath, or shift dresses, platforms, heels, wedges, clutches, earrings, bracelets, rings, necklaces.
Synonymous with luxury style and effortless polish, Michael Kors has a sophisticated, jet-set aesthetic. Known for his laidback, luxurious, wearable and quintessentially American silhouette, designer Michael Kors started his label in 1981 and has dressed Hollywood actresses, music superstars and first ladies.
The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) and coinciding with Amazon Fashion Week TOKYO Spring/Summer 2018 (October 16-22), the Fashion Hong Kong Month is being held in Japan from, October 1 to November 2. A total of 14 Hong Kong fashion and accessories brands, including four Hong Kong runway show designers and 10 accessories brands, will be presented. Aside from the fashion show and an after-show party, the Hong Kong fashion showroom will be set up to facilitate potential collaboration opportunities between Hong Kong designers and their overseas counterparts, while displays and pop-up stores will also be in place at various locations in Japan to further enhance the exposure of Hong Kong designs.
Hong Kong designers will debut their latest collections. The four designers’ work will be available for print on Casetify phone cases. Their runway collections together with the ten accessories brands will not only be available for sale at the pop-up stores but also at Goxip, a Hong Kong online fashion shopping start-up.
Since its debut in 2015, Hong Kong Fashion has staged numerous world-class runway shows, at Tokyo Fashion Week, New York Fashion Week and Copenhagen Fashion Week.
Another highlight is the Asia Fashion Collection, scheduled on October 16. Young Hong Kong designer Key Chow will showcase his latest collections and work with designers from Japan, Korea and Taiwan to present a vibrant fashion show.
China’s booming economy continues to propel Asia and drive worldwide economic growth. The International Monetary Fund expects China’s economy to expand by 6.8 per cent this year due to stronger recorded growth in the first half.
If realised, the growth rate will outdo last year’s 6.7 per cent, which was China’s slowest pace of expansion since 1990. But China’s slower transition from an investment-based economy to a consumption-based one will come at the cost of further large increases in debt. The pace of China’s credit growth has alarmed analysts in recent years.
The uptick in growth is expected to result in greater debt levels over the long term, raising the prospect of a sharp growth slowdown in China. Since the global financial crisis in 2008 its debt load as a percentage of gross domestic product has grown more than 10 per cent per year on average.
Elsewhere in Asia, the fund raised Japan’s growth forecast to 1.5 per cent this year from one per cent last year. But it warns a shrinking labor force and weak inflation will be a drag on the country’s prospects. In India, the growth momentum has slowed due to the impact of a currency exchange initiative and the launch of GST.
In the rest of emerging markets and developing Asia, growth is expected to be vigorous.
The Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (CITI) organized an event on textile and clothing industry in Ludhiana, on October 9, 2017. The inaugural address was on the Indian textile industry and significance of innovation and technology in the present competitive scenario.
A presentation from the ERP software point of view highlighted the emerging trends in global textile sector and gave innovative solutions and tools for addressing the challenges and capturing the global market. There were inputs on emerging new business models based on innovation and modern technology.
Delegates participated in the deliberations through questions-answers with panelists. Around 50 delegates participated in the event. CITI is the apex industry chamber of the entire textile value chain of India. With an increase in manufacturing costs globally, businesses are focusing more on enhancing productivity to improve the bottom line and new technology is playing a key role in achieving it.
Investing in innovative technology will ultimately result in offering the right product at the right price, which is important for a company’s profit. India is trying to improve its export competitiveness. To achieve this, the textile industry has to invest more in R&D and innovative technologies for achieving business excellence and improving productivity and product quality for taking the sector to new heights of success.
The profitability of garment exporters in Bangladesh has hit rock bottom. The main reason is that price of garments has been falling five to eight per cent every year whereas the cost of production is increasing 15 per cent to 18 per cent. This means production cost and the buying price of a pair of denim trousers are almost the same.
In fiscal 2016-17, the growth of garment exports, which account for 82 per cent of total national exports, was also the lowest in the past 15 years. Garment exports increased 0.20 per cent year-on-year in the last fiscal year, 7.34 per cent below the target for the year.
The sector witnessed on an average 16 per cent year-on-year growth since 1990 up to fiscal 2015-16. Although garment exports grew 10 per cent in volume in fiscal 2016-17, the value remained almost the same as previous year.
Primarily, demand for apparel items is declining in the western world as customers progressively become more environment-minded. They are making more conscientious buying decisions: purchasing less and focusing on quality.
In 2015, the demand for apparel items worldwide declined eight per cent. Too many products for too few consumers are the greatest challenge facing the fashion industry.
Pakistan International Trade Fair (PITF) will be held from October 26 to 29. Nearly 300 companies, including 100 from Pakistan, will participate. Among the countries are Belarus, China, Iran, Malaysia, Russia, UAE, South Korea, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Germany, US, and Japan. Nearly 50 Chinese companies will exhibit their products.
Products and services from major sectors to be showcased in PITF 2017 include textiles, handicrafts, building materials, consumer electronics and FMCGs. Banking and insurance services as well as travel and tourism services are also offered. There will be also hundreds of high level meetings planned on the side lines of the exhibition between trade bodies and foreign delegates, key officials and participants to forge alliances and joint ventures in trade and industry, exchange information and experiences, create networks and finally enter into partnerships.
The aim is to emphasize the economic potential of Pakistan and to promote bilateral trade. In addition to the exhibition itself, PITF Expo hosts a variety of interactive events, such as a business matchmaking program, various conferences, a Youth Festival focusing on the skills of young talents and fashion shows by textile firms.
The event is supported by the Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce & Industry as well as numerous other associations and institutions.
A yarn-based coding system that can be used to track textiles through the supply chain has been developed by Swedish researchers. The yarns function as an optical stamp on the surface of woven or knitted fabrics that is introduced during the weaving process and unlike other technologies such as RFID tags or barcodes is an intrinsic part of the textile product and cannot be removed. The yarns are coded using twist-based optical features which can be generated on a hollow spindle frame.
Since the reproduction of these tags is not easy like other tags, including barcodes and RFIDs, they can provide enhanced security to textile products from counterfeits. Further, from the economic aspect, yarn-based tags are normal textiles, therefore, there is no need of special material components and in-house production in a textile industry can be done.
In contrast barcodes and RFIDs possess low security against copying and reproduction, which means an identical tag can be easily reproduced and placed with a counterfeit product. Further, these tags are generally removed at the point of sale, so it becomes difficult to track the history of a product back thereafter, while embedded foreign materials such as tracking chips can raise privacy issues and cause problems with recycling.
Turkey is known for towels, bathrobes and bed sheets. The country has found markets for these products in Denmark and Sweden. Turkish towels are world famous. The country now wants to make Turkish towels a world brand. Exports of towels to Denmark increased 121 per cent in nine months of this year compared to the previous year.
Europe prefers towels in gray and dull colors, in simple embroidery. Turkish towels are made from Turkish cotton, a premium cotton that has extra long fibers. Using longer fiber cotton means fewer joins, which results in stronger and smoother cotton threads. Because of this unique material, Turkish towels are known to become even softer, fluffier, and more absorbent with successive washings.
Turkey is known for producing some of the highest quality cotton products in the world and the towels are as absorbent as traditional towels but take up less room and dry very quickly. The soft cotton is lightweight and super absorbent, making them dry much more quickly than a traditional cotton terry towel. They often come in bright colors as well as more muted tones, and are extremely versatile for bath and beach, even as a scarf, sarong, or a summer throw. They make the perfect pool towel but you can also use them as scarves, wraps, or even as tablecloths.
"The recently held Smart Fabrics Program and E-Textiles Workshop at the IFAI Expo in New Orleans, delved deep into the future of smart fabric development and its commercialization. Smart fabrics need to be more than ‘cool technology,’ said Laurie Mease, Trade specialist for the US Department of Commerce/Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA). They need to fulfil an unmet need, and provide a solution."
The recently held Smart Fabrics Program and E-Textiles Workshop at the IFAI Expo in New Orleans, delved deep into the future of smart fabric development and its commercialization. Smart fabrics need to be more than ‘cool technology,’ said Laurie Mease, Trade specialist for the US Department of Commerce/Office of Textiles and Apparel (OTEXA). They need to fulfil an unmet need, and provide a solution.
Case in point
Two years in development, the Levi's Commuter Trucker jacket recently went on sale, featuring touch controls woven into the cuff which allow the wearer to receive phone calls, navigate, or play music without getting your cell phone out of your pocket. Developed in conjunction with Google’s Advanced Technology and Projects Group (ATAP), the jacket sells for $350, and can only be washed 10 times before the circuitry is damaged. The jacket’s touch-sensitive denim fabric, woven with conductive threads containing a copper core, allows you to communicate wirelessly with your phone via a detachable Bluetooth dongle. Will this jacket appeal to the masses?
Jesse Jur, Associate Professor, Department of Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science (TECS) at the College of Textiles, North Carolina State University, points out providers of wearables are generally not meeting expectations set by the media, and are no longer buoyed by hype. No one in this industry is making any money because there is not yet a market need. The best use-cases for smart textiles lie in the health care market, where standards and reliability are critical. The words ‘wearable tech’ will go away, stated Ben Cooper, MD, IOClothes, though he believes that the future of apparel, footwear, and textiles is tied into the development of the Internet of Things (IoT).
Future forward
Conductive yarns and threads from Marubeni Electro-Yarn and Supreme Corporation’s Volt Apache yarns can be incorporated in textile substrates to provide conductivity. Variation in materials, including copper, stainless steel, silver, or carbon, as well as with metallisation technologies, allow the properties of such yarns to be fine-tuned, according to McDermid Enthone Industrial Solutions. While conductive threads can be knit, woven, sewn, or embroidered into textile substrates, printed textile circuits using electronic inks or pastes hold great potential. DuPont Intexa screen printable inks of silver, carbon, or silver-chloride can be placed on TPU film in intricate patterns, then laminated to the fabric to create pathways to a circuit. The resulting e-textile is super flat, light weight and stretchable.
The development of standards and IP protection for smart textiles has been making waves lately. Washability, consumer safety, sustainability and the reliability of medical and military technology are critical issues. Connie Huffa of Fabdesigns, pointed out that some designers want to put copper fibres right into fabric. Electronics can do things to your immune system, and graphene is toxic to the body. In addition, e-textiles may not be recyclable, with batteries adding toxicity.
The American Association of Textile chemists and Colorists (AATCC), ASTM International, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and the Association Connecting Electronics Industries (IPC) have begun to grapple with the problem. Gerry Elman, president, Elman Technology Law, pointed out that patent law can be very difficult, particularly in partnerships between industries as diverse as textiles and technology.
Scope for commercialisation
Successful commercialisation of smart textiles lies in finding a need, enabling the textile infrastructure and electrical components to work together, and establishing appropriate standards. Despite the challenges, smart fabrics and e-textiles may provide stimulus for a tired textile industry churning out commodity fabrics at very nominal cost. Beyond current developments for military and first responders, medical and health care, and sports and fitness, there are hidden opportunities waiting to be explored in mass transit, industrial and commercial end uses, energy harvesting, and smart mechanical textiles.
