Textiles Minister Smriti Zubin Irani on Thursday informed the Rajya Sabha that seven mega textile parks will be set up in next three years, enabling the textile industry to become globally competitive, attract large investment and boost employment generation.
Ms Irani, in a written reply, said the Production Linked Investment scheme of Rs 10,683 crore over a five year period covering MMF and Technical Textiles sector, announced in the Union Budget 2021-22, will create global champions in exports, and domestic production in textile sector will also grow substantially.
The Union government is also implementing a number of schemes for promotion of textile sector, including Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (A-TUFS), Schemes for the development of the Powerloom Sector(Power-Tex), Schemes for Technical Textiles, Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks (SITP), Scheme for Additional Grant for Apparel Manufacturing Units under SITP (SAGAM), SAMARTH- The Scheme for Capacity Building in Textile Sector (SCBTS), Jute (ICARE- Improved Cultivation and Advanced Retting Exercise), Ministry of Textiles said in a statement.
Besides, Integrated Processing Development Scheme (IPDS), Silk Samagra, National Handloom Development Programme, National Handicraft Development Programme, Integrated Wool Development Programme (IWDP), North East Region Textiles Promotion Scheme (NERTPS), Rebate of State and Central Taxes and Levies (ROSCTL), Scheme for Production and Employment Linked Support for Garmenting Units (SPELSGU) will also be implemented.
Source: Daily Excelsior.com
Minister for Industries and Commerce Mekapati Goutham Reddy has requested Union Minister for Textiles Smriti Irani to sanction mega textile parks in Anantapur and Nellore districts under the Mega Investment Textiles Parks (MITRA) scheme, and a National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT) in Visakhapatnam.
He also requested Ms. Irani to support the development of Visakhapatnam as a hub for technical textiles in collaboration with the A.P. MedTech Zone in the city.
Connectivity edge
In a representation to the Union Minister in New Delhi on Thursday, Mr. Goutham Reddy said the textile park in Anantapur would have tremendous scope for business due to its proximity to Bengaluru and that a similar facility near Krishnapatnam in Nellore district would have a major advantage of superior multi-modal connectivity.
Visakhapatnam would be an ideal location for NIFT, for which the State government would provide land and give approvals at a fast pace, he stated.
NHDP funds
Mr. Goutham Reddy sought the support of the Ministry of Textiles for SPKM Indian Institute of Handloom Technology at Venkatagiri in Nellore district. He also wanted the second instalment of funds to be released for developing block-level handloom clusters under the National Handloom Development Programme (NHDP).
Besides, he appealed for the release of Government of India’s share of the marketing incentives under the NHDP.
Further, Mr. Goutham Reddy requested Ms. Irani to release the Central government’s share of about ₹31 crore in the funding of 377 handloom weavers’ cooperative societies for 2013-18 period.
He asked for the immediate release of subsidy under the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme to 36 spinning mills, in which joint inspections had been completed and approvals given, and to process the sanctions in the remaining 48 mills where inspections were done.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
A proposal for closure of British India Corporation is in the advanced stage as the company has been incurring losses since its nationalisation in 1981, Parliament was informed on Thursday.
Closure of Handicraft and Handloom Export Corporation of India was approved by the Union Cabinet this week as it was continuously incurring losses for a long time and there was little scope for its revival, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
"Proposal for the closure of British India Corporation Ltd. (BICL) is in the advanced stage. The corporation has been incurring losses since its nationalization in the year 1981," she said.
She added that owing to continuance of losses, BICL was referred to the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction (BIFR) in 1991 and was declared sick in 1992.
"The government approved revival schemes in November 2001, 2005 and 2011 also failed," she said.
The minister also said that to enable more freedom and flexibility for industry members in the functioning of Export Promotion Councils which are industry bodies, the ministry has decided to withdraw its representatives from all textiles export promotion councils.
Source: The Outlook News
Urging the Central and the State governments to take steps to control the price of yarn that has gone up by over 30% in the past few months, members of Erode Cloth Merchants Associations downed shutters for a day here on Thursday.
Shops are located at Kongalamman Kovil Street, Eswaran Kovil Street and market areas in the city in which 95% of the textile products are sold across the country while the rest is exported to a few nations. Its president K. Kalaiselvan said that yarn price is increasing frequently affecting their business severely.
“The price of yarn is on the upward trend for many months now as we are unable to sell our products”, he said. Over 3,000 shops in the city were closed on Thursday resulting in loss of business transactions to the tune of ₹50 crore and affecting over 40,000 daily earners and workers, including loadmen and vehicle drivers.
Mr. Kalaiselvan wanted both the governments to intervene and regulate the yarn price and also fix the price once or twice in a month. “We cannot take orders from customers as the yarn price keeps changing everyday”, he said. Since textile shops were closed, the usually busy streets where the shops were located wore a deserted look for the day. Business was also affected in tea shops and eateries while loadmen also lost their livelihood for the day.
Source: The Hindu Business Line
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) on Thursday said India's Covid-19 stimulus fell short of initial announcements, leading to a lower than expected economic performance in 2020.
In its Trade and Development 2020 update, it said the relief measures adopted by India were not only much smaller in scale, but also centred on easing supply side constraints and providing liquidity support rather than aggregate demand support. UNCTAD expects India's GDP to have contracted 6.9% in 2020 and grow 5% in 2021, attributing the stronger recovery projected for 2021 to the deeper-than-expected downturn in 2020.
“Moreover, restrictions to people’s movement not only severely affected incomes and consumption, they also proved largely unsuccessful in containing the spread of the virus,” the UN agency said in its report titled ‘Out of the frying pan... into the fire’.
As a result, it said, the fall in economic activity proved to be larger than it had envisaged in mid-2020. “The budget for the fiscal year from April 2021 to March 2022 also points to a shift towards demand-side stimulus, with an uptick in public investment (particularly in transport infrastructure) for the coming fiscal year,” it said, adding that an anticipated recovery in global demand will also help buoy the export sector through 2021.
GLOBAL ECONOMY
UNCTAD said for the global economy, the overall cost of the crisis has been exorbitant with the brunt of the hit to the global economy being felt in developing countries with limited fiscal space, tightening balance of payments constraints and inadequate international support. Moreover, while all regions will see a turnaround this year, potential downside health and economic risks could still produce slippages.
Source: The Economic Times
Exporters will have to wait longer to get incentives under the new Remission of Duties and Taxes on Export Products (RoDTEP) scheme.
Sources privy to the development said differences between the Commerce and Finance Ministries over the quantum of benefits to be released under the scheme is expected to delay finalisation of refund rates for various product categories, affecting finalisation of contracts by exporters.
The new scheme, which replaced the MEIS (Merchandise Exports from India Scheme), is applicable with effect from January 1, 2021. But in absence of rate of benefits finalised by the Commerce Ministry, exporters continue to remain in dark, resulting in delays in also a few export bound shipments, said some exporters who did not want to be named.
Sources said that the G.K. Pillai panel set to finalise rates under the scheme for thousands of products has suggested a design that may raise annual RoDTEP benefits to the tune of Rs 30,000 crore. The Finance Ministry, sources said, wants the annual benefits to be capped at around Rs 13,000-15,000 crore. This has prevented the Commerce Ministry from finalising the scheme as comments from the Revenue Department had not yet been received.
The government has budgeted only Rs 13,000 crore for the RoDTEP scheme for FY22, which is way below the scheme's initial estimated annual cost of Rs 50,000 crore. Also, it is only a third of the Rs 39,097 crore the government approved for exporters in FY20 under the MEIS for many sectors.
Industry experts and former ministry officials said that with the government's focus on productivity linked incentives (PLIs) and other stimulus measures announced as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat package, RoDTEP may have to be operationalised with a smaller budget.
The RoDTEP is designed to reimburse the input taxes and duties paid by exporters, including embedded taxes, such as local levies, coal cess, mandi tax, electricity duties and fuel used for transportation, which are not exempted or refunded under any other existing scheme.
The scheme was brought about with the intention to boost exports which were relatively poor in volume previously.
A smaller budget for it would mean that sectors outside the textiles would be left with little or no benefits. As the reimbursement scheme for the textiles sector, RoSCTL, will get subsumed in RoDTEP once it is launched, an estimated outgo of Rs 7,500 crore will have to be set aside only for it.
Source: Daijiworld.com
The global economy is set to grow by 4.7 per cent this year thanks to a stronger-than-expected recovery in the United States, a report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) said on Thursday, revising up its previous forecast of 4.3 per cent.
The upwards revision from its previous forecast made last September factors in an expected boost in US consumer spending on the back of progress distributing Covid-19 vaccines and a vast stimulus package, the report said. “The global recovery that began in the third quarter of 2020 is expected to continue through 2021, albeit with a good deal of unevenness and unpredictability, reflecting epidemiological, policy and coordination uncertainties,” the report said. Earlier this month, the OECD also revised higher its growth forecast for this year to 5.6 per cent from 4.2 per cent.
However, the 22-page UNCTAD report called ‘Out of the frying pan...into the fire?’ said Covid-19 will have lasting economic consequences that will require continued government support. It said the main risk to the global outlook is a “misguided return to austerity”.
The report estimates that last year there was a 3.9 per cent drop in output as the spread of the coronavirus sparked lockdowns across the world.
It called the impact “exorbitant”, describing the “destruction of income on an unprecedented scale” with people in developing countries particularly hard hit.
Still, it says it would have been worse had central banks not taken preemptive action to avoid a financial meltdown. Relief packages and a bounce-back in commodity prices, as well as the fast-tracking of vaccine development, also helped, the report said. Despite the scale of the global health and economic crisis, international cooperation has fallen well short of what was needed.
The report compares the $12 billion in suspended debt servicing (for June 2020 to June 2021) for the 46 countries participating in the G20’s Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI), to the $80 billion in debt service payments in 2019 by the 73 eligible DSSI countries and over a trillion dollars for all developing countries.
The report sees signs that emerging growth strategies after Covid-19 across the world are reverting to their pre-crisis norms, with an undue emphasis on exports in parts of east Asia and western Europe, loose monetary policy and asset-fuelled consumption in the US, and reliance on private capital inflows and commodity exports in Africa and Latin America.
Source: The Business Standard
Bangladesh and India are likely to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA) over the next five years that will preserve trade rights for the former once it graduates from the United Nations’ least developed country (LDC) status in 2026, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).
The CEPA will be wider than a traditional bilateral free trade agreement, addressing non-trade barriers, e-commerce, services investment and facilitation of cross-border trade, EIU said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to visit Bangladesh on March 26—his first foreign visit in the last 15 months.
"Although no major agreements are expected to be signed, we view Mr Modi's visit as a significant show of the continuation of warm ties between the two neighbours, despite some tense undercurrents recently," EIU said.
Source: Fibre2Fashion News
Some top British designers and environmental activists recently wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urging him to make the United Kingdom the first country in the world to ban the sale of real fur. The designers highlighted their ability to “thrive, without being complicit in the suffering caused by the fur trade” and cited the ‘dwindling demand’ for real fur among UK consumers and retailers.
The activists include Stella McCartney, Vivienne Westwood and Katharine Hamnett and the designers include Christopher Raeburn, Erdem Moralioglu, Helen Moore and Hannah Weiland.
“[We have a] shared belief that fashion, driven by consumers and enabled by innovation, is evolving to make animal fur obsolete, as more and more luxury fashion designers and high street retailers eliminate it from their collections. The majority of U.K. consumers reject animal fur on ethical grounds,” the letter said.
Eliminating real fur from the shop floor should follow the ban on fur farming in the United Kingdom, according to the group, which urged Johnson to follow the state of California in the United States, which banned fur sale in 2019.
The letter also showed support for the ongoing #FurFreeBritain campaign by Humane Society International, an organisation promoting animal rights and urging for a total fur ban.
“If the UK were to become the first country to prohibit the sale of animal fur it would surely only enhance its growing reputation as a global hub for innovation in ethical fashion,” added the letter.
Arguing against the proposed ban, the British Fur Trade Association said a fur ban would be nearly impossible to enforce and would increase the amount of fur from unregulated sources coming into the country.
“The reality of a UK fur ban is that it would punish consumers, legitimate retailers, and those that deal in legal, high-quality sustainable and certified furs whilst putting huge strain on law enforcement,” said the organisation in a briefing report titled ‘How a UK Fur Ban Would Damage and Set Back Animal Welfare’.
The report argues that in case of a ban, much of the trade would simply move to unregulated, untaxed online sources, including those operated by criminal elements.
Source: Fibre2Fashion News
Euratex president, Alberto Paccanelli addressed European Commissioners Thierry Breton and Nicolas Schmit during a high-level roundtable on skills for the textiles, clothing, leather and footwear (TCLF) sectors. In his remarks, Paccanelli insisted that addressing the skills challenges will be essential to make a successful transition of the industry.
According to company’s release, these challenges relate to the ageing workforce and difficulties to attract young talents, and the need for new skills – related to digitalisation and sustainable production. Paccanelli asked support to the European Commission to increase already existing up/reskilling activities, and in attracting younger generations to work in the sector.
The European textile and clothing industries stand out on the global market with their quality and heritage, high-end goods, but also innovation of production processes and products. In recent years, digitalisation, sustainability and other trends emerged, requiring new skills to be developed and integrated in the companies. The sector also suffers from an ageing workforce – 35 per cent of current workers in the textile and clothing industry are over 50 years old –, decreasing number of younger employees and lack of attractiveness, as stated in the release. The Covid-19 pandemic significantly accelerated these trends and created new challenges.
These issues were presented to European Commissioners Schmit and Breton during the “Pact for Skills roundtable”. Several representatives from the industry and related stakeholders explained that these trends not only affect the workforce of EU companies, but more broadly the competitiveness of the industry. A “Pact for Skills” can offer the right framework for developing a new framework, if well designed and implemented.
A recent TCLF survey among 150 companies, launched by Euratex, CEC and Cotance, confirmed these challenges: only 57 per cent of respondents implement currently up/reskilling activities to meet digital skills needs, 85 per cent foresee them as important or very important in the next 5 years; 1 in 3 companies implements up/reskilling activities to meet green skills needs, and around 60 per cent see them as very important in the next 5 years; up/reskilling activities, focused on process and production skills characteristic for the textile and clothing industries, will remain important in the future. 9 out of 10 companies foresee needs for this type of skills in coming years; and up/reskilling initiatives in companies are constricted by time and financial constraints, as well as lack of knowledge about existing offer. That's why only 15 per cent of companies admitted that they often or always use external financial support in up/reskilling. Collaboration structures between education stakeholders and policy makers - on national and regional levels - are considered ineffective.
The Pact for Skills initiative can then be the solution to these problems, but it needs to deliver concrete answers. Euratex president highlighted some actions which should be part of the Pact for Skills: support SMEs in their digital transformation with financial aid or programmes.
In the survey, companies stated that direct funding is the only way to meet this transformation; improve the skillsets of existing workforce, by supporting companies in their efforts to upskill and reskill their workforce through training, apprenticeship and mentorship programmes; minimise skills gaps and mismatches in the areas of sustainability, digitalisation, process innovation and new business models; attract well-qualified young workers and professionals and; supporting the modernisation of the sectors’ VET and training infrastructure through improved education-industry collaboration. At the same time, European T&C companies are willing to engage and develop the Pact for Skills initiative.
With the necessary support, they can commit to: increase diversity at the leadership level to become more inclusive and dynamic; foster closer cross-sector collaborations, as for example in Digital Innovation Hubs; create new collaborations with education and policy stakeholders; plan to make greater use of the possibilities offered by Erasmus+ Programme.
“The Pact for Skills initiative can be the driver for change in a sector which is going through a substantial transformation” Alberto Paccanelli said. “But it should be implemented quickly, offer tangible results, and be part of the wider EU Textiles Strategy. Euratex is ready to support the European Commission in running the process and connect all the different actors.”
Source: Fibre2Fashion News
In Japan, the term "mottainai" -- loosely translated to "what a waste" -- has deep roots. Originating from a Buddhist belief that every object has intrinsic value and should be utilized for its full life cycle, the credo has been threaded throughout national culture for centuries.
"Mottainai and handmade culture is everywhere in Japan," said Kaoru Imajo, director of Japan Fashion Week Organization, said in an email. Sake lees (the residual yeast left over from the fermentation process), he points out, has long been used as a cooking ingredient, and discarded orange peels have been reduced to fibers and turned into paper. Brands like Nisai, in their Autumn-Winter 2021 collection shown at Tokyo's Rakuten Fashion Week (pictured above), upcycle used clothing to design "one-of-a-kind" looks. Then there's the case of boro textiles -- fabrics that are often worn out, but then repurposed, patched together to create new garments.
"We have been fixing old carpets, clothes and fabric so we can use (them) as long as we could," he said. "Now, boro textiles are traded very expensively and known as a 'Japanese vintage fabric.'"
Today, a number of Japanese fashion labels are channeling these traditional ideas in the name of sustainability, embracing centuries-old garment production techniques and pioneering new technology to reduce waste and lessen environmental harm throughout the production process.
Innovation from nature
At Shohei, founded by creative director Lisa Pek and CFO Shohei Yamamoto in 2016, sustainable decision-making starts with the dyeing process. Pek says the brand, which operates out of Japan and Austria, has been working with a Kyoto-based artisan to procure textiles dyed using traditional kakishibu methods.
Why the sustainable fashion movement should always include plus-size people
During the kakishibu dyeing process, textiles are immersed in the fermented juice of unripe persimmon fruit -- an alternative to popular synthetic dyes, which can be damaging to soil and waterways. After the dyeing process, the fabric is tanned in the sun, creating orange hues. The kakishibu dyeing process also creates a water-resistant effect when oxidized in the air, and provides antibacterial properties. "This is something you might find in a tech fabric," Pek explained in a video call, "but it's already there in nature."
Shohei also sources fabric dyed using shibori -- a hand-dyeing technique that dates back to the eighth century -- from a family-run business in Nagoya. Like kakishibu, shibori uses natural dyes (typically derived from indigo) and is less harmful to the environment than its synthetic counterparts.
In a similar spirit of eco-friendly production, Japanese designer Hiroaki Tanaka, founder of Studio Membrane, has been working with biodegradable protein resins derived from wool -- the basis for "The Claws of Clothes," a collection of avant garde, architectural womenswear unveiled at the 2018 Eco Fashion Week Australia in Perth. Created in collaboration with Shinji Hirai, a professor at the department of sciences and informatics at Hokkaido's Muroran Institute of Technology, Tanaka likens the protein resin's texture to a human fingernail, and its durable texture to plastic.
"I wanted to make totally biodegradable clothes," Tanaka said over Zoom, through a translator. "Because it's just made of wool, it's very (ecologically friendly)."
However, Tanaka admits that his protein resin is better suited to wearable art than everyday clothing. When the resin is wet it reverts to its usual wool form, and loses its structure. However, since wool is biodegradable, he believes the material could be used to replace certain disposable items, such as diapers, that are currently filling landfills.
Using tech to combat waste
As fabric choices are integral to sustainable fashion, new technology and machinery is also at the forefront of this environmental movement, decreasing the amount of fabric wasted during pattern-making, sampling and sewing.
In this arena, Japanese manufacturer Shima Seiki has set the standard with its computerized Wholegarment knitting machines. Unlike the traditional way of producing knitwear, where individual pieces are knitted then sewn together, Wholegarment items are seamlessly knitted in their entirety in a singular piece.
According to Masaki Karasuno, a Shima Seiki spokesperson, up to 30% of fabric is wasted in standard production, when individual pieces of pattern are cut from bolts of fabric before being sewn together. "All of that is eliminated when an entire garment can be knitted in one piece directly off the machine," he said in a phone interview.
Wholegarment's machinery gives brands the option to produce clothing on demand -- another way to reduce industry waste. "Mass producing garments based on projected demand tends to overshoot actual demand (and is the reason) why there's a lot of overstock... which results in waste," Karasuno explained. "Wholegarment can produce the number of garments that are required, when they are required."
In 2016, Fast Retailing Co., the parent company to fast fashion giant Uniqlo, started a strategic partnership with Shima Seiki called Innovation Factory, where they produce a variety of Wholegarment knits for the Uniqlo brand. Since then, Italian fashion label Max Mara and American clothing brand Paul Stuart have also turned to Shima Seiki's Wholegarment technology.
Shima Seiki also offers a virtual sampling platform which provides realistic renderings of individual garments -- alternatives to the physical samples that are produced as a collection is developed. Often, sampling is an iterative process, with factories sending new, tweaked versions of a garment until the designer is content with the final product. While the process is helpful for designers, allowing them to adjust for factors like fit, placement and quality, these prototypes often end up landfills.
How to increase the longevity of your wardrobe
"Each of those samples that gets wasted requires time, cost, material and energy to produce ... and all of those are just thrown away," Karasuno said.
Shohei has been partnering with No Form, a digital design studio, to produce realistic 3D images of some of their garments using tech similar to Shima Seiki's virtual sampling platform. These renderings can be used in their online store in place of photos of samples. "It's the same as when you think about architecture, where you create a model... before building it," Pek said. "It's also another way to be environmentally friendly and save costs."
Christina Dean, the founder and board chair of Redress, an environmental charity that aims to reduce textile waste, believes the steps taken by Japan's fashion industry is setting a positive example for a healthier fashion ecosystem internationally.
"I think it's very interesting how islands deal with innovation. If you have a country that can't have endless landfills, and you can't ship all your waste and dump it somewhere else... it drives innovation," she said in a phone interview.
"When you go to Japan it's a beautiful, considered, minimalist, cultured society, and if you couple their traditional past with the fact that they are very high tech, the textile industry in Japan is a champion in terms of technology."
Source: CNN Style News
Egypt’s National General Contracting and Supplies Co., a subsidiary of the National Service Projects Organisation (NSPO), recently signed a contract with the Cotton & Textile Industries Holding Co. (CTIHC) under the ministry of public business sector to carry out the construction of Misr Spinning Weaving’s factories in Kafr El-Dawwar. Minister of public enterprises Hisham Tawfik witnessed the signing ceremony.
The EGP 2.4-billion agreement includes building six textile factories for the spinning, weaving and knitting of fabrics over an area of 175,000 square metres, Tawfik said in a statement.
The targeted production is 50.7 million metres of fabric annually, up from the current 13 million metres, according to Egyptian media reports.
Source: Fibre2Fashion News
