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Baldwin has launched a non-contact precision spray fabric finishing system. With extensive sustainability benefits, unprecedented tracking and process control, and industry 4.0 integration, TexCoat G4 provides consistently high-quality fabric finishing, with no chemistry waste, as well as minimal water and energy consumption. The innovative non-contact spray technology eliminates chemistry dilution in wet-on-wet processes. TexCoat G4 consistently and uniformly sprays chemistry across the fabric surface and applies it only where needed, on one or both sides of the fabric. Customers can expect no bath contamination during the finishing process, as well as minimal downtime during changeovers, which are made easy with recipe management that includes automated chemistry and coverage selection.
TexCoat G4 also enhances sustainability by wasting no chemistry during color, fabric, or chemistry changeovers, and because only the required chemistry volume is applied to the fabric, wet pick-up levels can be reduced by up to 50 per cent, leading to 50 per cent less water and energy consumption. Furthermore, in single-side applications, drying steps can be eliminated for various textiles, including those that are back-coated and laminated, thereby streamlining and simplifying the production process.
Baldwin is a manufacturer of innovative process-automation equipment and consumables for the printing, packaging, textile, plastic film extrusion, and corrugated industries.
Bangladesh and India have emerged as the biggest beneficiaries in kidswear export to USA in January 2020. As recent reports by OTEXA reveal, USA imported US $ 237.14 million worth kidswear in January and grew by 1.23 per cent on Y-o-Y basis. India massively surged by 27.17 per cent in its kidswear exports to USA, while Bangladesh grew by a huge 44.76 per cent.
India shipped kidswear worth US $ 33.59 million to USA in January 2020 as against US $ 26.41 million worth of shipment in January 2019. On the other hand, Bangladesh escalated its kidswear export to US $ 30.05 million from US $ 20.76 million a year earlier.
Vietnam shipped kidswear to USA worth US $ 31.32 million during the same time, which is 10.19 per cent higher than January 2019. Seeing the data, it’s clear that India surpassed the export value of Vietnam in kidswear export, while Bangladesh almost narrowed the gap with this 2nd top RMG exporter to USA. Indonesia also steered its kidswear export to USA in January which was down till December by 20.78 per cent. Revenue that Indonesia earned in this category was US $ 9.72 per cent, growing at 12.93 per cent rate on Y-o-Y basis.
China dipped enormously by 43.68 per cent due to Coronavirus outbreak in January as it declared lockdown in most of the provinces which prevented Chinese factories to achieve on-time shipment. China could export kidswear to USA just worth US $ 56.53 million in the first month of 2020 as compared to US $ 100.37 million in the same month of 2019.
For the fourth quarter American Eagle Outfitters’ revenue increased by six per cent. Comparable sales decreased three per cent in the quarter compared to a three per cent increase last year. Gross profit decreased five per cent in the quarter compared to the same quarter prior year. Selling, general and administrative expenses decreased slightly.
For the full year, revenue grew seven per cent. American Eagle comparable sales were up slightly compared to a five per cent increase last year. Gross profit in the year increased two per cent. Selling, general and administrative expenses increased five per cent. Operating income decreased from last year.
American Eagle Outfitters is a specialty retailer offering on-trend clothing and personal care products. Though the company faced some challenges in 2019, it made good progress on its strategic growth pillars, posting record revenues. It saw strong customer engagement and positive traffic across brands and channels. American Eagle saw growth in its signature jeans and bottoms categories. Looking ahead, the company is focused on areas of underperformance and strengthening profit margins. Product improvements, inventory management and gaining efficiencies are top priorities. Its healthy brands and strong balance sheet position it well to compete in today’s market.
For years, Coats has had a robust approach to sustainability and 2019 saw progress made in the first year of its new strategy. Coats has set ambitious goals to deliver by 2022 as it continues pioneering toward a more sustainable future. Coats is the world’s leading industrial thread company. It enters 2020 as a lean and agile organisation, having delivered significant positive strategic change through 2019. This was a year of continued growth in profits and cash, despite a market backdrop which saw lower than normal growth in retail sales of apparel and footwear, and temporary softness in some of the industrial end-markets. In apparel and footwear, this meant taking a bigger market share by delivering high quality products with world class levels of speed, customer service and support. However growth was impacted by slower demand for zips and trims due to certain in-year fashion trends and conscious low margin product rationalization as well as the impact of tail market exits and other customer/product portfolio rationalisation actions. Coats is well placed to take advantage of the fast-paced and rapidly changing modern world by capturing the many opportunities. In Bangladesh Coats is the first company which offers garment factories recycled thread. The company uses plastic bottles to make chips, which are then converted into plastic threads.
Adidas saw its business in the greater China area drop by about 85 per cent year on year in the period since Chinese New Year. The German sportswear maker expects first-quarter sales to drop significantly in greater China due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19). China accounts for 20 per cent of Adidas’ sales. The brand sells its products from about 12,000 stores in China, most of them franchises, about 500 of its own stores. Almost a fifth of its shoes and apparel are produced in China. But now, Adidas has cancelled all shipments to wholesale partners in China and plans to clear excess inventory through its own channels during the rest of the year.
Adidas has forecasted currency-neutral sales to increase by between six per cent and eight per cent for the full year and for its operating margin to rise by between 10.5 per cent and 11.8 per cent. It remains fully confident about its future growth prospects due to its strong positioning in an attractive industry despite the temporary challenges posed by the coronavirus outbreak.
Fourth-quarter sales rose a currency-adjusted ten per cent. Currency-neutral sales grew 18 per cent in greater China, ten per cent in North America and 14 per cent in Europe.
Having 15 offices and 500 professional employees across India, IIGM is India’s leading technology and service provider. The company, which recently participated in the GTE exhibition, offers embroidery, CAD systems, sewing, automation or cutting. To this, the company recently added new products like exhaust fans, cooling systems, electrification for machines. Raghav Sharma, Director of the company expounds on its operations and the Indian market.
Being extremely price conscious, Indians prefer investing in something viable. “For that we are conscious of bringing in cost effective yet credible technology, as we increasingly realise the need to adopt new technologies and systems in Indian Textile space is real now. This can be practically calibrated through the various loan schemes available in the market to facilitate,” views Raghav Sharma, Director, IIGM.
Sharma believes that though the current US-China trade war is affecting business, things will get back to normal soon. “The current economy environment is tough. Yet, companies need to find business which is currently shifting from China to other countries like Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh though it has its own set of challenges,” he opines.
Amidst all this chaos, India retains its position. “Though we are not growing, our business is stable. One of the reasons we are not getting new orders is because we are not adopting new technologies or systems. A big price war among exporters is affecting our profit margins. We need to be more cost effective and adopt new technologies sooner than later,” Sharma states.
According to Sharma, GST implementation has made the domestic market more organised. “Business in MBOs is picking up as people are spending on apparel and fashion. Exports have stabilized. However, the industry has a long way to go in terms of compliance to global industry standards,” he says.
The European textiles and clothing sector cares about circularity of its products; for several years already, the industry is re-inventing itself to offer solutions that are workable and make a sustainable impact. That’s why Euratex welcomes the new Circular Economy Action Plan, released by the European Commission, as it reflects many proposals developed by our industry. At the same time, this Action Plan is just the starting point for developing a more focused strategy, which must take into account the specific challenges of our sector. Euratex has already developed its own comprehensive strategy, including specific recommendations and workable solutions.
Euratex welcomes the plan as it sets the foundations to change the way products are made, the way waste is managed, and the way people consume. The Action Plan wants to be as comprehensive as possible, involving all the actors in the value chain, citizens, Members States and local realities. The EU needs now to set the conditions to remove structural barriers, address or prevent market failures and bring harmonised solutions across the European single market. Essentially, the EU needs to create a European market for reuse of textile material and such an objective can be achieved with the upcoming Strategy for Textiles.
For the textile and apparel industry, the Circular Economy Action Plan is not a “wake-up call” because companies have been doing a lot for the past years. They invested money in research and innovation and came up with a wide range of solutions. They, though, faced a lot of challenges that prevent such solutions to enter a broader market.
Therefore, Euratex is asking the European Commission to focus on the following points:
• 99% of the textile and apparel industry is composed by SMEs. The EU needs to take into consideration their specificities. In particular, SMEs lack fund to upscale their products and solutions, plus they need a legislative framework which is not burdensome. Remove barriers, not create new ones.
• Companies need a territory that can deal with the whole circularity process. A company, which produces textiles by recycling used clothes or other fibers, should have a textile recycling facility in the vicinity, not 250km away. Euratex welcomes the proposal of the European Commission to provide guidance to achieve high levels of separate collection of textile waste by 2025. It must be done in a well-organized manner, so to avoid tons of waste textile waiting to be processed.
• Green Public Procurement will increase demand allowing business to invest in circularity. In 2015, public procurement accounted for 13.1 % of the GDP in the EU, this means that almost €1.923 bln were spent by public bodies purchasing goods or services. That is a formidable leverage which Member States can use to boost closed-loop productions, promote scale economies which lower costs and proactively drive changes. Authorities can then choose high quality and durable products, reward low-impact manufacturing processes, and favour products designed with recycled or biobased/biodegradable materials.
The National Council of Textile Organizations (NCTO), representing the full spectrum US textiles from fiber through finished sewn products, has welcomed the Trump administration’s proposals on an economic stimulus package to gird the economy against the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. However, the organization urged officials to reject any attempts by importers to remove China 301 tariffs on finished products as part of any relief package.
“The president has outlined the need for a broad economic stimulus package that would include various tax incentives to help impacted industries and workers. We support the administration’s efforts to bolster the economy as a response to the coronavirus outbreak, while opposing add-ons to any stimulus package designed to exploit the crisis,” said NCTO President and CEO Kim Glas.
“Any push by importers and retailers to take advantage of the situation and press for removing China 301 tariffs on finished consumer goods—a penalty imposed by the administration in a separate investigation of China’s illegal intellectual property (IP) abuses—should be rejected immediately,” she said. “Tariff breaks on finished products will only pad the pockets of retailers that have long benefitted from China’s trade abuses, and ultimately will not be passed on to the consumer,” Glas said.
“Granting importers a tariff break would essentially let China off the hook for systemic IP violations that have displaced U.S. workers and undermined U.S. leverage in negotiating a phase two agreement,” Glas continued.
As a part of Phase One deal with China, the administration reduced duties on finished apparel and textile products implemented on Sept.1 from 15 percent to 7.5 percent. “NCTO has strongly supported applying tariffs on finished products as a key negotiating leverage but opposes keeping tariffs in place on certain inputs that are not made in the US such as select dyes, chemicals and textile machinery. NCTO has long-argued tariffs on these inputs hurt domestic competitiveness for US textile manufacturers,” Glas said.
Finished apparel, home furnishings and other made-up textile goods equate to 93.5 percent of US imports from China in the sector; while fiber, yarn, and fabric imports from China only represent 6.5 percent, according to government data.
Despite a generally difficult demand environment for textile fibers and a drastic drop in prices for standard viscose, the Lenzing Group recorded a solid business development in 2019. Its disciplined implementation of the sCore TEN corporate strategy and the accompanying focus on specialty fibers, helped the company to mitigate the effect of unprecedentedly low standard viscose prices.
Our focus on specialty fibers contributed to our resilience during the reporting period. Our goals for 2024 underpin this confidence in our future”, says Stefan Doboczky, Chief Executive Officer of the Lenzing Group. “The implementation of the key projects in Thailand and Brazil plays a central role in further strengthening our market position and in accomplishing our ambitious climate targets,” Doboczky adds. The expansion and modernisation of the dissolving wood pulp plants in Lenzing and Paskov, which started in 2017, will increase pulp production capacities by roughly 35,000 tonne annually. The expansion in Lenzing was successfully implemented in the second half of 2019. At roughly the same time, the new capacities at the Paskov plant were gradually started up. This process will be completed in the first quarter of 2020.
Based on the decision to build a dissolving wood pulp plant in Brazil with its partner Duratex, Lenzing will increase its self-supply by 500,000 tons annually, thus strongly enhancing backwards integration. The plant is expected to start operations in the first half of 2022. Lenzing and Duratex hold 51 percent and 49 percent, respectively, in the joint venture. Industrial CAPEX are expected to total roughly US$ 1.3 billion (based on current exchange rates and customary tax refunds). Expansion of specialty fiber capacities In 2019, Lenzing also started the construction of a state-of-the-art lyocell production facility in Thailand. The investment for the new plant with a capacity of 100,000 tonne amounts to roughly EUR 400 million. Construction work started in the second half of 2019. The completion is scheduled for the end of 2021.
The primary focus of the company in the coming years will be on the implementation and execution of set climate targets and investment projects in Thailand and Brazil. Lenzing aims to increase the share of high-quality specialty fibers in fiber revenue to 75 percent by 2024 and the share of internally produced pulp to more than 75 percent. In line with its strategic commitment for 2024, Lenzing strives to reduce CO2 emissions per ton of product by more than 40 percent compared with 2017.
The group also expects the comparatively positive development of its specialty fiber business to continue. Driven by the challenging situation in standard viscose and low paper pulp prices, prices for dissolving wood pulp are expected to remain at low levels. Caustic soda prices in Asia have already declined significantly over the past months; this development is now also noticeable in Europe. The above effects significantly impact earnings visibility for 2020. The Lenzing Group currently expects the result for 2020 to be below the level of 2019. The market developments reassure the Lenzing Group in its chosen corporate strategy sCore TEN. Lenzing will continue to focus on the strategic investment projects which will yield a significant contribution to earnings starting from 2022.
"Owning to its faulty approach, the fashion industry’s sustainability efforts have remained largely insufficient. Instead of completely overhauling its business model, so far the industry has only been focusing on recycled materials, waste and rented clothing. The latest ‘Pulse of the Fashion Industry’ report by Global Fashion Agenda states only 60 per cent companies are making visible efforts towards sustainability. However, they need to scale deeper in order to be completely sustainable."
Owning to its faulty approach, the fashion industry’s sustainability efforts have remained largely insufficient. Instead of completely overhauling its business model, so far the industry has only been focusing on recycled materials, waste and rented clothing. The latest ‘Pulse of the Fashion Industry’ report by Global Fashion Agenda states only 60 per cent companies are making visible efforts towards sustainability. However, they need to scale deeper in order to be completely sustainable. At its present rate of development, the industry will be able to meet neither the Paris Agreement nor the Sustainable Development goals.
To achieve this, companies need to set competition aside to partner with opponents for the sake of the industry at large. They also need to look at new materials that they have not yet explored.
Lack of accountability, insufficient infrastructure
One big reason for the industry’s failure to achieve its sustainability goals includes lack of accountability by
supply chains. Neither end of the supply chain has taken the reins in driving sustainable change. Though some companies have adopted circularity as a cure for all their sustainability woes, they have been unable to address the issue sufficiently. Even designers are being trained to create products in such a way that they can be recycled. However, lack of sufficient infrastructures prevents the industry from achieving its goals.
Increasing collaborations, rewards to help achieve sustainability goals As Amina Razvi, Executive Director of Sustainable Apparel Coalition points out, to tackle this problem, brands will need to reconcile sustainability with some of the more important economic metrics driving the fashion industry—like growing demands that have brands stocking up on endless inventory.
Supply chain improvements, rewards to increase sustainability
To provide a solution to this problem, Global Fashion Agenda has assembled a think tank with key stakeholders, including McKinsey & Company that focuses on improvements to supply chain efficiencies. However, this alone will not solve the problem. The industry also needs to reward companies that are truly sustainable. They also need to outline the key leverage points for making the sector more sustainable by collaborating with other industries.
The industry can’t solve its problems with the thoughts that created it. It needs to start talking to economists, different industries to come up with the key leverage points to focus on.
