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Innovations for Sustainable Textile Production ... Connecting the Dots will be held in Mumbai, February 20, 2015.It will discuss cleaner and greener processing solutions from both machinery and chemicals and dyestuffs.
The theme highlights the need to improve production practices for sustainable working and growth of the textile industry.
The international conference aims to address the problems faced by the textile industry, with regards to effective use of fast depleting natural resources and curtail its adverse environmental impacts. It will provide an insight to the possible solutions to the textile processing industry for cleaner and greener chemicals and dyestuffs, sustainable processing techniques, better processing machinery and effective effluent treatment methods.
The event includes sessions on various topics like sustainable fibers for the 21st century, resource management, innovations in machinery, innovations in processes, effluent management, and denim for tomorrow.
Speakers of global repute will be sharing their knowledge. Representatives of various brands, chemical companies, garment manufacturing firms, machinery manufacturers, laboratories and textile processors will be participating.
Up to 500 delegates are expected to attend the conference, which will see the participation of the complete textile supply and value chain and international brands, along with presentations from well-known international speakers on contemporary technical topics.
Vidarbha has expressed the need for a textile manufacturing hub in Nandgaonpeth, Amravati, so that cotton is processed and goes out of Vidarbha as fabric, in short, fiber to fabric.
Road shows will be held in Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu to market Nandgaonpeth as a textile hub.
However, certain parameters have to be made conducive for the establishment of a textile industry in Nandgaonpeth. Water rates have to be made competitive and common effluent treatment plants should be made affordable.
Textile centers are being planned for Vidarbha. At least three textile parks have been planned to facilitate cotton cultivators to sell their cash crop within the region and reap the benefits.
The region has received proposals for 14 spinning mills with a likely investment of Rs 666 crores and three composite spinning and weaving units which could pump in investment of Rs 700 crores. Together these units could offer over 7,000 new jobs. Investors are scouting for land and other infrastructure.
A 10 per cent subsidy is being offered to units coming up in Vidarbha, Marathwada and Khandesh areas. Another major reform on the agenda is addressing the power crisis which has been dissuading industries in the cotton growing belt of Vidarbha.
The review committee on garment factory inspection in Bangladesh is waiting for the government’s direction to take action against factories which have failed to conduct detailed engineering assessment of their factory buildings within the stipulated time. Of 49 factories, 14 units are yet to conduct the assessments. The 14 factories are on the inspection lists of the Accord on Fire and Building Safety and Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety.
The review committee was formed last year to decide on shutdown of any garment factory due to safety concerns. If the three initiatives find serious faults in any factory, they can suggest the review committee to look into the matter and only the review committee can announce closer of a factory if it finds any safety risk.
In the process, the review committee received recommendation for reviewing 41 buildings where 84 garment factories were located.After review the committee announced closer of 32 factories, while 21 units were partially closed, and 49 were asked to conduct the assessments.
The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments has already sent a list of the factories to the labor ministry seeking necessary direction in this connection.
Jeans Care was the first factory where Accord inspection teams found structural faults and sent their report to the review committee for further decision.In the first week of April the review committee asked the authorities of the factory to conduct the DAE within six weeks but the company is yet to do it.
Exports of Vietnamese apparel are expected to touch $24.5 billion thereby surpass the set target by nearly a billion. The garment and textile sector continues to top Vietnamese exports, mainly due to the right strategies. These include: hiking the percentage of locally made raw materials to 50 per cent.
Vietnam exports garments worth $8.85 billion to the US, $2.38 billion to Japan and $1.96 billion to South Korea, all of which put together account for 70 per cent of exports from the sector. Signed and pending free trade agreements are opening up a lot of chances for the sector to grow further, as import tariffs may drop to zero in many markets.
The tax incentives to be ushered in with the signing of Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement in 2015, will also create favorable conditions for clothing exports to the US market. If TPP deal is inked, it would help Vietnam capture 10 per cent market share from China, as Vietnamese textiles and apparels would then enjoy greater benefits than China, which do not form part of the TPP agreement. Globally Vietnam ranks fifth in textile and apparel exports.
Indian textile associations want some more time to fulfill their export obligations under the export promotion capital goods scheme. Mills say they were not able to fulfill the obligation due to recession for the last six years. So they want time and they say the export obligation should be only six to eight times the duty saved.
India’s share in the international market is 32.9 per cent for cotton yarn, 3.53 per cent for cotton fabric, 11.25 per cent for cotton made-ups and 3.86 per cent for garments. One problem facing the industry is that subsidies under the Technology Upgradation Fund scheme are yet to be refunded. The Associations say the delay has impacted projects. They want the Centre to allocate an additional Rs 3,000 crores for the scheme in the upcoming Budget.
The Indian share in global textile and apparel exports is miniscule due to various levies on manmade fiber made products. The industry wants import duty, special additional duty, and anti-dumping duty to be removed and the central excise duty on manmade fiber to be reduced.
The government stopped extending benefits to the industry from June 2010 to April 2011. One specific request the industry has is that raw material costs, costs of converting raw material to finished goods as well as power tariffs should be less than or equal to global prices.
The next edition of Heimtextil will be held in Germany from January 14 to 17, 2015. This is a trade fair for home and contract textiles. It is a platform for manufacturers, retailers and designers to stock up on their year’s quota of best raw materials at cheapest prices. Leading textile manufacturers from all over the world bring their best materials to this fair. Heimtextil is normally the first trade fair of the year.
The products include bed linen, upholstery, furniture fabric, household decorative covers, garments etc. Four major design trends for this year are: Sensory, Mixology, Discovery and Memory, these will be featured at the show. Sensory trend comprises delicate, clinically cool colors such as Whisper White, Spa Blue and Moonstruck. Mixology is characterized by contrasting dynamics, bright colors and ethnic patterns. Discovery is an attempt to create profound feelings with pronounced fabric structures and colors such as black, purple and silver. Memory stresses on picturesque and romantic images with saturated colors including True Navy and Scarlet Sage.
These textile trends signify a yearning to satisfy one’s desire for well-being and luxury. But they also fulfill the principle that aesthetics and functionality always go hand in hand.
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The UAE has implemented the International System of Units (SI), which replaces imperial measurements such as foot, inch and yard with the metric system.
The new rules come into effect on January 1, 2015. Fabric and textile suppliers and merchants must comply with the new system by using the meter as an unit instead of the yard. The conversion of unit sales used in the textile trade is an important step toward unifying the units of measurement used in the UAE, making these consistent with the SI.
The new system is part of efforts to protect consumers’ rights and ensure better practices as per approved standard specifications in order to stimulate economic growth. The shift follows the UAE’s introduction of the liter instead of the gallon as a unit of measurement for fuel in 2010.
A lot of Arab customers still ask in yards, so it will take some time for people to get used to asking for measurements in meters.
Shop keepers say the change will have a small impact. The difference in size amounts to a 10 per cent loss for them so they have increased the price of some items by five per cent and other items by seven per cent. To fix the problem, they are now buying in meters so they can sell in meters without any losses.
The textile and clothing sector in India wants the government to take interest in the trade agreements proposed with Russia and the European Union and address some of the bottlenecks that the industry faces.
Vietnam and Bangladesh have overtaken India in apparel exports though they do not have manufacturing facilities for the raw materials. Differential taxation for cotton and man made fibers, need for a fiber policy, high energy costs and too many regulations are some of the factors slowing down the country’s textile industry.
Since duty free import of garments is permitted in India from Bangladesh, a lot of Chinese fabric also comes into India through Bangladesh. However, Bangladesh imposes high duties on import of fabric from India. The industry wants the norms to be modified, stipulating use of yarn and fabric of Indian origin as a pre-condition to allow duty free import of garments from Bangladesh.
India’s traditional markets are the European Union, US and Japan. Now the country is looking at newer markets like Brazil and Russia. Brazil imported apparel items worth 2.5 billion dollars in 2013-2014 from India. The industry wants textile items to be included under the existing India-Mercosr preferential trade agreement.
Since the European Union offers zero duty market access to Pakistan, Bangladesh and less developed countries, the industry wants the free trade agreement with the EU to be concluded soon.
Mexico has announced a set of measures aimed at combating unfair trade practices affecting the textile and apparel sector and enhancing the productivity and competitiveness of domestic manufacturers in the face of mounting foreign competition.
This action includes six separate measures involving import duties, importer registration, automatic alerts, enhanced surveillance and minimum estimated prices. In addition, Mexico will establish new financing mechanisms to allow domestic textile and apparel producers to modernize their infrastructure and increase their exports to foreign markets.
Tariff breakouts for textile and apparel products will be expanded from the 8-digit to the 10-digit level. Textile and apparel importers will be required to be listed on a sector-specific registry. This requirement is already in place for certain other sectors, including footwear.
The Mexican government will establish an automatic alert system for textile and apparel imports that will allow customs officials to verify imported goods in advance. Minimum estimated prices will be set for raw materials and finished goods. The import duty reduction on 73 apparel items and seven textile made-ups has been postponed.
A new financing mechanism will enable the textile and apparel sector, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, to upgrade their machinery and equipment, pursue innovative strategies and develop new products.
Turkey's annual textile exports are up 8 per cent. Germany features as Turkey’s largest export destination followed by neighboring Iraq. Exports to the Middle East were up by 6.2 per cent, with a 61 per cent increase in exports to Syria. Exports to EU countries increased by 9.2 per cent.
Exports to markets with which trade was minimal in the past also showed stronger figures, as sales to Rwanda surged 295 per cent and exports to Suriname increased by 158 per cent. Turkey’s first quarter GDP growth was 4.8 per cent, but it slowed in the second quarter to 2.2 per cent and dropped to 1.7 per cent in the third quarter after the crisis in Iraq and Syria.
The central bank had said it would keep interest rates near zero for a considerable time but signaled in December 2014 that it would raise rates some time next year. Higher US interest rates could spur an outflow of capital from emerging markets, including Turkey, where private sector foreign debt is now at 165.2 billion dollars.
Turkish exporters feel conditions in 2015 can be more challenging, as the US Fed is expected to hike interest rates. The Turkish government has set an export target of 500 billion dollars by 2023.
