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This year’s Make it British Live!, May 23 to 24, hosted around 200 exhibitors.
Formerly known as Meet the Manufacturer, for its fifth edition, the show was curated by the UK Fashion & Textile Association and focused specifically on bringing the fragmented supply chain back together after years of decline through connecting brands with manufacturers and providing the needed support to the young talents in the industry.
Among visitors, who were mostly from the UK, but also representing countries like Malaysia, USA, Japan and Russia, were businesses which look to the UK for luxury products. There was also a good turnout of buyers from UK high street.
There were more mills this year. For the first time, a dyer was exhibiting at the show. The event covered the whole supply chain, so anyone developing a product in the UK would find spinners, weavers, knitters, dyers as well as suppliers of trims, labels, buttons, etc.
UK manufacturing is enjoying a great renaissance, helped by the growth in the cost benefits of re-shoring and the sustainability agenda. Manufacturing employment in the UK is rising.
Across the UK, fashion manufacturing employs over 43,000 people with nearly 3,900 companies. Textile manufacturing in the UK is also constantly developing.
International Textile Machinery will be held in Turkey, June 2 to 6, 2020, starting on June 2, as additional day, instead of June 3.
This is a textile machinery show. The event displays textile equipments and products, textile related software and solutions and other products and services. It gathers together some of the most important manufacturers of textile machinery from Turkey and around the world.
ITM is a showcase for weaving, printing, digital printing, flat and circular knitting, weft and warp knitting, spinning, winding, twisting, texturing, hosiery, quilting, dyeing and finishing machinery, textile chemicals, lab equipments, compressors and generators. The show held in April 2018 achieved great global success. There were foreign visitors from 94 countries, a high number of domestic visitors, an increase in the number of machines exhibited and a rise in the dimensions of exhibitor booths. Both national and international companies made sales of millions of euros. Hundreds of various business connections were established. Over 1150 textile technology manufacturers and company representatives from 64 countries participated at the exhibition and exhibited their products and technologies.
Most textile machinery manufacturers in Turkey range from small to medium sized companies. The line of textile machinery products manufactured by Turkish companies varies substantially from highly automated equipment to basic models. They have competence in most machinery categories such as atmospheric jet dyeing or blow dyeing.
Pakistan’s exports grew by 13 per cent during ten months of the ongoing fiscal year compared to the same period last year.Currency devaluation after four and a half years helped in increasing exports.
However exports declined to 20 billion dollars the last fiscal year from 25 billion dollars of a few years before. Exports were adversely affected due to high energy costs, exchange rate appreciation and high import tariffs on inputs and delayed sales tax refunds.
The export package has been extended up to June 30, 2021. The package aims at improving the competitiveness of the textile and non-textile export sectors to continue export growth in the coming financial years.
Pakistan’s exports are expected to remain at 23 billion dollars to 24 billion dollars during the ongoing fiscal year.
The target was set at 35 billion dollars.
Textile exports make up around 60 per cent of the country’s total exports. The textile sector has the largest share in Pakistan’s exports.
Pakistan’s competitors are upping the ante on textile exports to make inroads into more global markets. While China’s share in global textile exports is 36 per cent, Vietnam contributes 12.4 per cent, and Pakistan seven per cent.
Various problems are being faced by the country’s textile sector including the high cost of doing business, multiple taxes and surcharges.
Sri Lanka plans to have a different approach to the apparel sector and to implement a new model of business to reach five billion dollars in exports this year.
With this in view, Sri Lanka is restructuring its production infrastructure and planning a new raft of trade agreements. With the anti dumping laws in place, entering into trade agreements is expected to have far reaching benefits. The skills development aspect is given careful consideration. Since there is a labor shortage in the sector, youngsters will be encouraged to join the industry. The supply chain will be integrated while meeting the needs of international buyers. To ensure products are competitive a structural adjustment program will be put in place.
The country earns 43 per cent of its foreign exchange through apparel and textile exports.
As most competing countries including Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, China and Ethiopia are producing for international markets, Lanka will work accordingly.
Since India’s burgeoning middle class is increasingly keen on branded apparel, Sri Lankan knitwear producers are confident that they can cater to a segment that is increasingly looking at quality purchases.
The country recorded 4.88 billion dollars for apparel exports in 2017. Sri Lanka enjoys the benefits of GSP Plus.
The sowing area under cotton is likely to decline by ten per cent to 12 per cent this year as farmers shift to other remunerative crops such as soybean and paddy to fetch better prices for their produce.
Cotton was heavily impacted by pink bollworm last year which farmers fear will spoil the crop this year as well. Secondly, prices remained subdued throughout last year, prompting farmers to look for an alternative crop. Other issues confronting farmers are a water shortage and unfavorable weather.
Farmers may shift from cotton to groundnut in Gujarat, paddy in Haryana and soybean in Maharashtra and the Telangana belt as cotton is still not remunerative compared to other options. Similarly soybean, pulses and sugarcane could surpass cotton in acreage as prices are firm and pest infestation in those crops is less.
Meanwhile, gains in cotton prices may be capped even as good quality seeds and an improved yield are not making much of an impact on crop output.
The decline in acreage may lower cotton output proportionately. India’s cotton output was estimated at 37.7 million bales in the first advanced estimate.
With monsoons forecast to be normal this year, kharif output is expected to be bumper this season.
Apparel exporters in Tirupur have been directed by customs to submit records of exports done by them since 2004.
Exporters, however, say records stretching that far back are not computerized.
Units in the district export apparels to various western countries. The goods are transited mostly through ports in Tuticorin, Kochi and Chennai and sometimes through airports in Coimbatore and Chennai. In order to encourage exports, duty drawback and other incentives were introduced at certain rates in accordance with the value of the exported goods. Exporters had to submit shipping bills in banks and obtain a Bill Realisation Certificate, which showed an exporter had received the payment as per the bill from a foreign buyer. Due to various reasons, the partial or full payment would not have happened.
Since 2014, the system has been automated. If exporters do not submit a BRC, or close the shipping bills within two years, they will be placed on a caution list. This data will be uploaded online by banks under the Export Data Processing and Monitoring System (EDPMS), and violators can even be stripped of their IE code. The measure was taken as exporters were found to have been involved in fraud to receive duty drawback.
Cotton yarn exports stood at $US 318mn in April, almost twice from that of same month last year.
Seventy-five countries imported yarn at an average price of US$3.20 a kg in the month.
China sharply increased its import by almost four times in volume and value terms and was top importer during the month. It was followed by Bangladesh with volume and value both rising by 45 per cent over the year. Portugal and Vietnam were the other major importers, also doubling their imports from India. Peru was the fifth largest destination.
Bulgaria, Indonesia, Hong Kong and USA were among the fastest importers of cotton yarn in April while Austria, Brazil and United Arab Emirates significantly reduced their import compared to last year.
Combed yarn export accounted for 63 per cent of total exports during April with China and Bangladesh being the major buyers followed by Portugal and Vietnam. Knit yarn accounted for more than half of total export value of cotton yarn.
In 2017, China supplied 33.3 per cent of the EU’s apparel and textile imports.China had a 34 per cent share of the EU’s clothing imports. Bangladesh ranked second, with a 17 per cent share. Turkey ranked third, with a 11.7 per cent share. India ranked fourth, while Pakistan came fifth.
The share of China, Bangladesh, and Turkey in EU clothing imports is 62.6 per cent.
Textile products, including yarn, fiber, fabric and home textiles, imported by the European Union countries from all over the world in 2017 increased by three per cent compared to the previous year.
EU’s imports of textile products from Turkey last year increased by 0.7 per cent compared to the previous year.
The third largest textile supplier to the EU is India. Approximately 1.3 billion euro worth of textile products were imported from India in 2017. The fourth largest textile supplier to the EU is South Korea.
The EU itself has a vibrant textile and clothing industry. It covers a wide range of activities like transferring raw fiber into yarns and then yarns into fabric and then finally using the fabric to produce a wide range of finished products such as wool, bed linen, geo-textiles, clothing, and synthetic yarns.
Mills in China will be allowed to enhance their cotton imports.
China, once the world’s top cotton importer, saw imports shrink from more than five million tons in 2011-12 to around a million tons last year, due to its efforts to reduce state stockpiles of the fiber.
Now, after several years of auctions to lower state stocks and with demand recovering, the market has become concerned about supplies.
China’s domestic cotton futures have rallied nearly 18 per cent since early April, fueled in part by worries over crop damage from heavy rains, as well as by heavy speculation.
It’s possible China’s move is related to pressure from the United States for higher imports of American farm goods.
Despite the move to boost imports, China says supplies are basically sufficient and that abnormal fluctuations in the current market are influenced by speculation and other factors.
China’s cotton output this year is expected to remain stable, with weather disasters about the same as in previous years. Bad weather came relatively early as well, reducing any impact on yield.
Commercial inventories are about 2.87 million tons at end-April, about a million tons higher than the same time last year.
While cotton demand has been steadily rising this year, there is limited room for growth.
The denim manufacturing industry in Britian is slowly gaining ground with many labels like Le Kilt, the Cooper Collection and King & Tuckfield designing and producing their jeans in London.
Although these jeans are currently made with imported Japanese or Turkish fabrics, the introduction of England’s first selvage fabric mill in Lancashire is likely to soon change that.
Made-in-Britain jeans share a certain directional and utilitarian aesthetic: The jeans are wide legged and sit high on the waist; outerwear is long line and more akin to workers' overalls than to classic denim jackets; and many of the pieces are unisex.
The denim manufacturing industry in London is still tiny. It took Ates three months to build a team of eight while Hewitt Heritage Fabrics, which produces selvage denim in Lancashire, was turned down by multiple mills that thought his project impossible.
