India's exports rise in both value, volume terms in 2022: GTRI report
India's GDP likely to grow at 6.2% in FY24, says Morgan Stanley
Delegation of Indian exporters to Source Fashion, London
Shuffling feet: On foreign trade and policy responses
In charts: How a global slowdown is effecting India's exports and the economy
INTERNATIONAL
Turkey to establish two new factories in Egypt for $100 mln
UK Government delays introduction of EPR scheme for textiles
Large-scale manufacturing declines by 3.5pc in December
Bangladesh PM calls on country’s apparel makers to explore new markets
NATIONAL
The country's merchandise exports have recorded a healthy growth in both value and volume terms in 2022, economic think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said in a report on Thursday. The outbound shipments rose by 14.6 per cent yearon-year to USD 453.3 billion in 2022. "The study found that products where exports increased to cover a value of USD 315.9 billion (69.8 per cent of total merchandise exports). But, products whose export quantities increased over the previous year represent USD 285.6 billion (63 per cent of total exports)," it said. Major product categories which have recorded growth in both value and volume terms include petroleum products, sugar, and basmatirice. "Petroleum products, including diesel, gasoline and naphtha represent an export value of USD 94 billion. The unit price rose between 50-115 per cent in one year. The high unit prices may be primarily due to the high prices of crude oil. Sugar saw a unit value increase of 15 per cent, with exports of over USD 5 billion," it added. It said that Gold jewelry and similar products with an export value of about USD 9 billion saw lower unit value realization in 2022. Similarly, hot rolled steel products with exports of USD 769 million in 2022 saw a decline of 26.2 per cent in unit value realization. "Exports in 2022 saw a healthy trend with products covering 63 per cent of export value and saw an increase in the quantity of export," the report said. Further products where India's exports have been traditionally strong but now feeling regulatory heat in a few countries or low global demand include shrimps, and iron-ore pellets. "Indian rupee/US dollar exchange rate appreciated by 6.1 per cent between June 2021 and June 2022. "This broadly explains the macro picture of why products where exports increased to cover a value of 69.8 per cent of total merchandise exports, but products whose export quantities increased merely represent 63 per cent of total exports," it said. Former Indian Trade Service officer Ajay Srivastava is the co-founder of GTRI.
Source: Economic times
India’s gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to grow at 6.2 per cent in FY24 as drivers of domestic demand remain intact amid fears of an impending slowdown, Morgan Stanley said in a research report released on Thursday. The report said that as the economy fully reopened in 2022 leading to a cyclical recovery in consumption, pickup in private capex with healthy balance sheets in the private corporate and financial sector, and acceleration in government capital spending, the world’s fifth largest economy will breach the consensus GDP growth figure of 6 per cent. “We believe that the key for sustained domestic demand is a pickup in capex, which will help create more jobs, thus leading to a virtuous cycle of more jobs leading to higher income, which will lead to higher saving, resulting in higher investment”, the report notes. Earlier, the Union Budget for FY24 had projected nominal GDP growth at 10.5 per cent, as the centre increased the capital investment outlay steeply for the third year in a row by 33 per cent to Rs 10 trillion. The Economic Survey for 2022-23 projected that India would witness a growth between 6-6.8 per cent in FY24, depending on the trajectory of economic and geo-political developments globally. The report also mentioned that the incoming high-frequency data on indicators like private consumption and investment reflected a moderation in the December quarter driven by base effect and shift in the festival calendar rather than a slowdown. “Indeed, incoming data on high-frequency indicators have gained momentum both in YoY (year-on-year) and MoM (month-on-month) terms in January. The trend is thus encouraging after these indicators exhibited mixed signs, with some of them slowing in YoY terms in Q3 after peaking in Q2, driven by the impact of shift in festival dates on growth rates”, the report notes.
Source: Business-Standard
A delegation of Indian exporters was led by Romesh Khajuria, Chairman, Wool and Woollens Export Promotion Council (WWEPC), Ministry of Textiles, Government of India to Source Fashion, London. The event was held from 12th-14th February He stated while interacting with the international designers participating in the event that more than 70 per cent of global trade is now based on the global value chain since raw materials and components cross borders numerous times. Director of Source Fashion, London, Suzanne Ellingham said that there is an urgent need for retailers to adopt a diversified, transparent and ethical supply chain since the global fashion industry has started working towards sustainable products. “We have launched Source Fashion to become the gate to UK retail and set the new standard for how inspiration, collaboration and awareness will shape the future of responsible product sourcing.’’ she further stated, while interacting with the media in presence of her team and Romesh Khajuria. She also appreciated the participation of Indian Exporters with their designs. Designs from Erinn Hayhow’s latest collection were also presented in the Fashion Show. Erinn said, “There have been amazing changes as we move towards a more sustainable world in so many industries but I cannot deny the fear I have that like everything, it has now become a trend for many people, I am hoping that even small changes in the right direction can help to save our planet’’ The main pavilion at this year’s Source Fashion, in collaboration with the WWEPC, was showcasing 20 established garments and textile exporters, said Khajuria. These exporters specialise in wool, woollens, fibres and other products including two hailing from Jammu and Kashmir. Most of these are export partners to the UK retail industry and already work with some big retailers in white-label production.
Source: Apparel Resources
India’s goods exports, a key driver of its growth impulses and a major job creator, got off to a disappointing start in 2023. Merchandise shipments fell 6.6% year-on-year to $32.91 billion in January. While this is the second month of contracting exports, the dip is more than double the 3% drop in December 2022 and marks a sharp 13.6% sequential decline. Along with an anticipated post-Christmas cooling off in demand, order books probably took a hit as much from actual slowing of economic activity as buyers’ wary assessments about consumer confidence levels, with the new year kicking off amid a pall of gloom and doom on the global economic outlook. Engineering exports fell 10%; pharma products lost momentum as did 14 other products out of India’s top 30 export items, including jewellery and textiles. The silver lining is that imports dipped too, bringing the goods trade deficit to a 12-month low of just $17.75 billion, a far cry from the $25-odd billion averaged in each of the previous six months and the record $29.23 billion gap of September 2022. If this trend holds, India’s current account deficit for 2022-23 may end up lower than the uncomfortable 3%-plus levels of GDP projected by most agencies. Yet, the drop in imports during January suggests domestic demand growth is fading. While the year-on-year drop was just 3.6%, the $50.66 billion import bill for January is the smallest in 18 months and 15.8% lower than December’s revised $60.2 billion figure. Only a part of this stepdown can be ascribed to lower commodity prices as non-oil, non-gold imports have fallen by a sharper 6.7% from January 2022 levels. The Commerce Ministry has argued that India’s weaker trade balance this financial year has been driven by the “two-way effect” of a slowing world economy hurting exports and resilient domestic demand shoring up imports. That effect no longer seems to be at work. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has rightly flagged concerns about Indian exporters’ prospects this year amid global slowdown fears. Her prescription that exporters keep closer tabs on developments in different markets to avoid being “demotivated” is also spot on. Amid the overall headwinds, trends are diverging in key markets. U.S. retail sales rebounded to grow faster than expected in January while Japan’s trade deficit hit a record; more U.K.- based trading businesses now expect an uptick in turnover this March compared to those that expect a fall, as per a survey by its Statistics office. Industry bodies and the government must work in tandem to tap shrinking opportunities better and help exporters move across this river of uncertainty by feeling the pebbles along the way.
Source: The Hindu
India's labour intensive sectors could bear greater brunt of global deceleration in 2023. Global slowdown this year will be led by advanced economies, especially the US and the eurozone. Being two of India’s largest export destinations, a slowdown in their economies would imply lower demand for Indian exports. Sectors such as textiles, footwear, and leather depend significantly on these two regions, making them particularly vulnerable to a slowdown in these economies, according to an analysis by Crisil. S&P Global, in its November 2022 outlook, predicted global growth to slow down to 2.2% this year from an estimate of 3.4% in 2022 with the US economy contracting 0.1% and Eurozone remaining flat in the base case, as the impact of continued monetary policy tightening across major economies manifests. Raising interest rates typically cools demand in the economy but it also has the potential to trigger a slowdown in overall economic activities. According to 's January 2023 World Economic Outlook advanced economies are projected to slow down this year. The World Trade Organization (WTO) also projects the global trade to slow to 1% in 2023 from 3.5% last year. This spells bad news for India because its growth cycles have become highly synchronised with those of advanced economies over the years, noted the Crisil study. The most important and direct impact of this will be reduced demand for Indian goods abroad. The US and European Union (EU) are two of the largest destinations, accounting for 18% and 15.4%, respectively, of India’s merchandise exports in fiscal 2022. Indeed, exports to these two regions have been on a declining trend since July 2022, barring a slight uptick in November and December, which could be a reflection of festive demand towards the year end, said Dharmakriti Joshi, chief economist at Crisil. The share of exports to the EU and US is higher than 20% for almost half of these commodities, and as high as above 40% in some cases.
Source: Times of India
INTERNATIONAL
Turkey will establish two new factories in Egypt for US$100 million, Egyptian cabinet spokesperson Nader Saad announced. The total Turkish investments in Egypt will exceed one billion dollars. Saad confirmed, in a telephone conversation with TV host Ahmed Moussa, on Tuesday evening, on Sada al-Balad channel, that Egypt is keen to distance the economic and trade file between Egypt and Turkey away from political disagreements. Saad added that the Prime Minister’s recent meeting with a number of Turkish businessmen is the first in ten years. Turkish companies operating in Egypt, include companies working in the fields of textiles, medical products, and electrical appliances announced pumping new investments in Egypt exceeding $500 million, Saad said. Turkish companies operating in Egypt benefit from the free trade agreement with Egypt, and export their production to other countries, he said.
Source: Egypt independent
Aconsultation on an EPR scheme for clothing and textiles was expected from the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs by the end of 2022. The EPR is a strategy to add all of the environmental costs associated with a product throughout the product life cycle to the market price of that product. The UK Government, in its publication ‘Our Waste, Our Resources, A Strategy for England 2018’, committed to invoking the “polluter pay” principle and harness the potential of EPR. It identified five priority material streams for consideration under this commitment including textiles. The UK Government was urged to ramp up its review of the EPR and bring it forward by three years to 2022, instead of an earlier suggested 2025, which the Textile Recycling Association said is too long given the rapidly growing competition from China and elsewhere to supply markets willing to take used clothes. Speaking at the Environmental Audit Committee on 10 February, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Therese Coffey, said: “I think it’s fair to say, I don’t anticipate an EPR for textiles coming into place in the near future. That may be disappointing to the Committee, but I’m conscious that we’ve got to prioritise.” Philip Dunne, Chair of the Environmental Audit Select Committee, responded: “I just want to emphasise that this Committee did a ground-breaking piece of work exposing not just the issue Claudia [Member of Parliament for Leicester East] referred to, which is the dumping of huge quantities of textiles from this economy, but also exposing the modern slavery alive on our streets. “Claudia Webbe is particularly aware of this because much of it was happening in her constituency. We took heart from the DEFRA response from your predecessor two years ago that there was going to be a consultation on this, and it would be very disappointing if that’s been bumped right off the agenda.”
Source: Just-Style.com
Large-scale manufacturing (LSM) declined for the fourth consecutive month in December, shrinking 3.51 per cent year-on-year (YoY), data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Wednesday. Big industry output has largely been declining since the start of the current fiscal year, with only a paltry rise recorded in August. There was a negative growth of 5.49pc in November, 7.7pc in October and 2.27pc in September on a year-on-year basis. The YoY decline in December was led by the textile sector, which shrank 21.24pc, followed by automobiles (36.22pc), pharmaceuticals (12.72pc), iron and steel products (8.12pc) and chemicals (3.82pc). On the other hand, the furniture sector posted a growth of 182.35pc, wearing apparel (25.5pc) and food (11.05pc). However, on a month-on-month basis, LSM increased by 12.38pc. PBS data showed that in the first half of the current fiscal year, LSM declined by 3.68pc compared to July-December 2021. The main contributors were textile (down 13.06pc), pharmaceuticals (21.56pc), non-metallic mineral products (11.72pc), coke and petroleum products (11.15pc), food (2.39pc) and chemicals (1.13pc). “The production in July-December 2022-23 as compared to July-December 2021-22 has increased in wearing apparel, leather products, furniture and other manufacturing (football) while it decreased in food, tobacco, textile, coke and petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, rubber products, non-metallic mineral products, fabricated metal, electrical equipment, machinery and equipment, automobiles and other transport equipment,” the PBS noted. The decline in large-scale manufacturing comes amid the government’s ban on all but essential food and medicine imports until a lifeline bailout is agreed with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Businessmen say the import ban, which has been imposed as the country’s foreign exchange reserves decline to a critically low level, will leave millions jobless. Alongside a shortage of raw materials, soaring inflation, rising fuel costs and a plummeting rupee have battered manufacturing industries. Industries such as steel, textiles and pharmaceuticals are barely functioning, forcing thousands of factories to close and deepening unemployment.
Source: The dawn.com
Underlining the need to come up with new innovations in terms of product offerings in keeping with the changing trends, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has called on apparel makers of the country to explore new markets. They, who are working with apparel and their exports, will have to find new markets, reportedly maintained the Bangladesh Prime Minister even as she opined new products will have to be produced keeping in mind the varying consumer choices in different countries. The Prime Minister reportedly said this while addressing a function marking National Textiles Day, from her official Ganabhaban residence through video conferencing She further reportedly stated fashion and design are very important and are changing constantly, with which the apparel industry of Bangladesh will have to keep pace through design innovations that are in high demand. On this day six textile institutes were inaugurated, namely Shahid Abdur Rob Serniabat Textile Institute, Gouronodi, Barishal; Sheikh Russel Textile Institute, Jamalpur; Sheikh Rehana Textile Engineering College in Gopalganj, Shahid Kamaruzzaman Textile Institute, Naogaon, Begum Amina Mansur Textile Engineering Institute and Sirajganj and Bhola Textile Institute.
Source: Apparel resources
World University of Design and IIT Delhi hosted the third international conference on Functional Textiles and Clothing (FTC 2023) from February 10-12, 2023 at Lecture Hall Complex, IIT Delhi. The inaugural session was conducted on Saturday, February 11. Spread over three days, the conference aimed to focus on various aspects of the textile and clothing industry and the technological advancements at play along with its impact on the environment. Representatives from renowned universities from across the globe have been invited to pilot path breaking sessions, sharing their varied experiences and research work with students and faculty members. The inauguration session was addressed by Rajeev Saxena (Joint Secretary, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India), who shed light on the ‘National Technical Textiles Mission’; Prof Xianyi Zeng (ENSAIT, France) emphasised on ‘Creation of a Green Textile Environment Protection-Oriented Supply Chain Through Intelligent Digital Form’ and Dr Mayank Dwivedi (Director, DMSRDE, Kanpur) shared his insights and theories on ‘Textile Materials in Defense Application’. Chair of the Scientific Committee Prof Abhijit Majumdar said, “Over a hundred speakers will be presenting their work in three parallel sessions and 30 researchers will be presenting posters. The speakers are coming from nearly 70 institutions across 20 countries worldwide. This is an excellent response from the scientific committee.” Prof Sanjay Gupta, Co-Chair of the Organising industry and Vice Chancellor of the World University of Design, said, “Textile industry as a whole is multifaceted machinery involving scientific and technical aspects and grosses a huge section of the GDP for India. At the same time, the industry is constantly on the radar of environmentalists for wasteful practices, which in the past decade have been checked and rectified across nations and manufacturers to create sustainable and circular chains. Going beyond basic aesthetics and building functionalities in textile and clothing adds value to the whole supply chain. Hosting this conference with IIT Delhi gives me immense pleasure and I am keen on hearing enriching insights from experts in the field.”
Source: Times of India
