IAF’s President Rahul Mehta spoke about developments in global apparel sourcing during a panel discussion at the Prime Source Forum (PSF) in Hong Kong, last week. Highlighting the journey of apparel sourcing from the age of finding capacity, to lowering costs, to responsible sourcing, to end up in the current time of fast fashion, he said that the sourcing solutions in 2015 must involve ways to reduce waste created by an inefficient system and taking into account the cost saving by bringing supply closer.

This year’s edition of Prime Source Forum gave a balanced picture of the issues that are crucial to apparel sourcing. Moving production to upcoming lower cost production markets has emerged as a reality. Africa is not a question mark anymore. Many at PSF including Mehta focused on this and agreed to this new phenomenon. However, Mehta also asked the industry to look for other options. What after Africa, was the question, he wants the industry to find answer to.

He said that it is time to start looking at cost of selling instead of just focusing on cost of purchase. PSF 2015 also tackled issues related to functioning of the supply chain and creation of attractive as well as sustainable products. Sourcing, according to experts, is now more than ever a mix of moving and improving production. And the Accord, the Alliance, strong environmental legislation in the US, in Europe and now also in China are creating more necessity for innovation. IAF believes that it’s important to keep talking together about the issues concerning the industry and it will do so at the World Fashion Conference and Istanbul Fashion Conference to be held on October 14 and 15 in Istanbul.

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