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The next edition of ITMA will take place in Italy from November 12 to 19, 2015. This showcases technology used for making textiles and garments. About 1,00,000 visitors from around the world are expected. It will display braiding and embroidery substances, plant operation equipments, finishing, dyestuffs and chemicals, garment and textile products and accessories, fibers and yarns, nonwovens, knitting and hosiery goods, spinning accessories and software, weaving equipments and services.
ITMA 2015 is a global marketplace, a one-stop sourcing platform for emerging trends and innovation solutions; acquiring new knowledge and best practices; and establishing strategic relationships with industry leaders. Since 1951, ITMA has been a recognized as a textile and garment machinery exhibition. CEMATEX, the European Committee of Textile Machinery Manufacturers, is the force behind ITMA.
The textile industry has a long way to go in improving its overall environmental performance. Sustainability remains a vital concern to manufacturers throughout the supply chain. The drive towards sustainability in the entire textile and garment value chain is increasingly integrated with enlightened business practices, and innovative technology holds the key to environmental sustainability. Textile technologists are being encouraged to consider what will happen to products at the end of their lifetime.
www.itma.com/
Market research firm Euromonitor International has released a new report on the apparel and footwear industry. In 2014, menswear grew by 4.5 per cent reaching $440 billion in sales compared to 3.7 per cent in women’s wear with $662 billion.
By 2019, menswear will contribute close to $40 billion in the global apparel market, offering opportunities for category development. Men’s shirts, jeans and jackets and coats are forecast to be the top performers between 2014-19. No wonder, over the past couple of years, men’s wear sales have escalated with men shifting their outlook towards fashion. Even renowned labels are taking note of this change. Recently, luxury brands like Coach introduced a full men's range and CFDA decided to host its first-ever men's fashion week, indicating that this trend is here to stay.
The report further states that while Western markets still spend the most on clothes future growth will be driven by Asia Pacific. In some of these key markets, menswear has already surged ahead of traditional female-oriented fashion. A recent e-commerce report from Ibis World too confirmed the trend, which said that online sales of menswear have grown at a faster rate over the last five years than every other category measured, including computers and tablets, cosmetics, shoes and even online groceries.
As per a report, brands traditionally focused on women’s wear have started opening separate menswear stores, while department stores are starting to revamp menswear areas. This has been particularly true in the luxury market, with a number of luxury and mass fashion brands like Burberry or Zara opening standalone menswear stores to take advantage of the growing trend.
www.euromonitor.com
The Bluesign Technologies conference will be held in Switzerland on July 13 and 14. Bluesign is an emerging standard for environmental health and safety in manufacturing textiles. The Switzerland-based organisation provides independent auditing of textile mills, examining manufacturing processes, from raw materials and energy inputs to water and air emissions outputs. It ranks its audit findings in order of concern and suggests ways to reduce consumption while recommending alternatives to harmful chemicals or processes.
This is the fourth conference and for the first time it’s open to the public. Top speakers from science and industry will speak under the topic ‘The Blue Way’. The conference will be divided into three sections: Blue Economy, Blue Chemistry and Blue Competence, which will, respectively, give an insight into economical and sustainable thinking, the chemical industry's greener solutions and alternatives, and sustainability options in textile processing and machinery.
Bluesign has gained serious traction in the last few years among some of the leading brands in the outdoor clothing and gear business. Eco conscious consumers can feel confident purchasing clothing items with the Bluesign label that they are buying the most environmentally-friendly, socially conscious jackets, shirts, sweaters, pants, hat or gloves.
www.bluesign.com/
Russia's technical textiles and industrial nonwovens industry is witnessing growth on the back of a number of new investment projects that were announced in recent months. For example, the Balashov textile mill (Baltex), one of Russia’s leading producers of technical textiles and nonwovens, is investing $200 million for expansion of the production of polyamide fibres and fabrics over the next few years.
While, the company is experiencing a shortage of raw materials, preventing it from further increasing its production, commissioning of a new factory is expected to partially solve this problem. Currently around 30 per cent of its production is fully utilized and this figure is expected to significantly increase in the coming years due to increase in production of technical textiles by 2017-2018.
Other leading Russian producers of technical textiles and nonwovens like Kuibyshevazot, Kurskhimvolokno and BTK Group, have also announced their expansion plans in Russia. The increase in production of technical textiles is part of the ambitious plans of the Russian government. It aims to increase the share of domestically made technical textiles to 80 per cent by 2020. At present, the Russian technical textiles market is estimated at US$2 billion, of which the share of domestic production hovers around just15 to 17 per cent. anstepan.rusmarket.com
Value-added textile producers in Pakistan have opposed the move to merge textiles and commerce ministry. Finance minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar had recently mooted a proposal to merge the two ministries. In a letter to the Prime Minister, value-added textile sector associations have expressed surprise at this recommendation made without consulting them and other stakeholders in the industry.
The letter adds that the textiles ministry was earlier set up due to their demands, since the sector makes up for 54.63 per cent of overall exports and generates 42 per cent of total employment. It was also noted that India has a full-fledged textiles ministry, despite the fact that Indian textile exports account for only 11.9 per cent of its exports. As per the letter, the textiles ministry should be given more powers to take vital decisions, since in its absence, it is not able to take vital decisions regarding implementation of the Textile Policy.
Swedish retailer H&M has released its latest “Conscious Actions Sustainability Report 2014,” which underlines the company’s commitment toward reducing carbon footprint, while going green. The 13th annual report highlights successful initiatives implemented by the company over the last year which include use of only renewable energy and increasing the number of products made from recycled materials.
According to the recent research paper by Textile Exchange, ‘Organic Cotton Market Report 2013’, H&M continues to be the world’s No. 1 user of organic cotton. In addition, 7,684 tons of used garments have been collected for reuse or recycling since its in-store program kicked off in 2013 that’s as much fabric as what’s in more than 38 million T-shirts and in 2014, the retailer released its first closed-loop products made with 20 per cent recycled cotton. The goal now is to collect 100,000 tons of used garments by 2020.
The company also made use of around 40 million PET bottles to make recycled polyester, 24.6 per cent of the retailer’s shoes are now made with mainly water-based glues and it pledges to use only certified down from this year onward, as well as only 100 per cent certified wool from 2017. The company also unveiled its debut ‘Conscious Denim’ collection, which on average used 56 per cent less water and 58 per cent less energy during the production process. It has also decided to include second-tier fabric and yarn suppliers involved in making about 35 per cent of its products, in public supplier factory list.
Keeping the situation in Bangladesh in sight, the company apart from monitoring factory compliance, has collaborated with the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Fair Labor Assocation (FLA) to promote industrial relations and social dialog between its suppliers and their workers.
www.hm.com
German market leader ZSK is known for industrial embroidery machines. It’s latest Technical Embroidery System JCW 0100-500 is a laying machine for fibers and wires. It offers an active wire and fiber supply system, a pneumatic clamping and stretching system, an automatic pull through system and it masters the automatic change of different medias. Many more options like a wire hit detection system or an automatic bobbin changer are available for ZSK’s technical embroidery systems with up to 11 heads.
Laying wire with this system is cost efficient, more reliable and environmentally friendly. Without any damage of the textile’s characteristic signals like fill level, movement or temperature can be measured and relayed. Various materials like carbon, glass and aramid fibres and wires can be processed. Single layered rovings are fixed to the base material by stitching. During the process, the base material is moved by the pantograph, enabling to lay rovings in any direction and quantity.
Another major advantage of this new process is the ability to lay rovings as per distribution of forces within a structural component. Some of ZSK's other offerings include the smallest embroidery machine, the Sprint, and multi-head tubular arm embroidery machines from the Jafa series.
www.zsk.de/
The textile industry is the largest manufacturing industry in Ethiopia. There are a number of state-owned and private textile and garment factories. The industry contributes the lion’s share of employment in the manufacturing sub-sector. Now, the Ethiopian government has asked the country’s Investment Commission to guide prospective investors through every step of the way.
Textiles and garments, leather products, cement, metal and engineering, chemical, pharmaceuticals and agro-processing are identified as priority areas for investment. A large domestic market and an increasing number of skilled workers are turning Ethiopia into an investment destination. The main raw material, cotton, is available in sufficient amounts. In textiles and clothing, spinning, weaving and finishing of textiles from the raw material to the production of garments are areas investors can look at. There are also ample manufacturing opportunities for prospective investors in tannery and leather products involving fashion items such as handbags, shoes, jackets and leather garments.
The main textile products are cotton and nylon fabrics, acrylic yarn, wool and waste cotton blankets and sewing threads. There are possibilities for manufacturing knitted and crocheted fabrics, carpets and sportswear. Already Chinese, Turkish and European garment manufacturers are seeking to expand their operations.
Techtextil to take place in Germany, May 4 to 7, 2015 is a trade fair for technical textiles and nonwovens. Companies will exhibit technology, processes, accessories, functional apparel textiles and nonwovens. With functional apparels and gaining ground customers are showing an interest in multifunctional jackets, which communicate, cool, illuminate, measure, protect at the same time.
Adding to the many features at Techtextil is an extensive complementary program. This includes the Techtextil symposium and the Techtextil innovation award. The innovative apparel show will display 40 inspiring textile and apparel designs, together with their processing technologies, on all four days of the trade fair. Also new, and intended especially for planners, architects, designers and interior architects, is an exhibition of photographs.
Texprocess will be taking place alongside Techtextil for the third time. Texprocess is a trade fair for the processing of textile and flexible materials. It offers innovative solutions that many textile manufacturers are not yet acquainted with. These two trade fairs provide an optimum reflection of the entire value chain, both from the point of view of producer and the product. Together they are expected to attract more than 1,650 exhibitors.
According to the YnFx Fibre and Yarn Exports-India report for March 2015, despite China being the largest importer of cotton spun yarn from India and Bangladesh, the second-largest, China has been paying much lower rate compared to the latter. For example, during February 2015, India exported 53.3 million kg of all kinds of spun yarns to China and 14.9 million kg to Bangladesh. Of these, 53.2 million kg and 13.2 million kg were cotton yarn, respectively and values were $140 million for China and $41 for Bangladesh. Thus the average unit value realization for exporting cotton yarn to China and Bangladesh works out to $2.64 per kg FOB India and $3.12 per kg FOB India.
The same values in February 2014 was $3.06 a kg and $3.55 per kg, respectively. Thus, the realisations have declined 14 per cent and 12 per cent for the two destinations from February 2014 and 2015. Among the 73 countries to which cotton yarn was exported in February 2015, Jordan paid the least at $2.31 a kg and Japan paid the highest at $6.16 per kg. However, the report points out that the differentiation may be attributed to the size of the volume, quality differentials, deliverability, and other technical aspects. But for China and Bangladesh, these qualifications are assumed to be neutral since the cargo-mix could be the same on an average. In February 2015, China imported cotton yarn at US cents 48 lower than Bangladesh and the same difference in 2014 was US cents 49 a kg. This implies that the difference has remained stagnant between both the markets.
Deciphering counts wise export of cotton yarn, to these two markets, shows the same result accepting in case of few counts. China was the largest importer of 32/1 cotton yarn with volumes at 24 million kg valued at $67.6 million while Bangladesh imported 0.41 million kg worth $1.3 million. Thus, unit value realisation works at $2.81 a kg for China and $3.15 a kg for Bangladesh. The differential between the two was US cents 34. Here, China had the advantage of larger volume over Bangladesh. In the same month, export of 30/1 yarn to Bangladesh stood at 3.15 million kg worth $9.8 million and the same to China was 1.80 million kg worth $5.30 million. Here, the unit value realisation was $3.10 a kg for the former and $2.98 for the latter. Again China was sold 30/1 at a price US cents12 lower than Bangladesh.
In similar comparison, China had advantage of US cents 7 for 40/1, US cents 21 for 20/1, US cents 63 for 24/1 and US cents 41 for 10/1 cotton yarns. In case of 28/1 cotton yarn, the volume to Bangladesh was much higher than China. Here, China bought Indian yarn at a higher price than sold to Bangladesh.
www.yarnsandfibres.com
