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All eyes are on the key Assembly constituency of Sircilla, the textile hub of Telangana, formerly known as “Sirishala” meaning wealth hub, in the bygone era. Situated on the banks of the Manair river, Sircilla earned the dubious distinction as the “epicentre” of weavers’ suicides” due to crisis in power loom sector in the late 1990s and early 2000s in the erstwhile united Andhra Pradesh. It shed its negative image and repositioned itself as a major textile hub, home to 30,352 power looms, over the years particularly after the formation of Telangana in 2014. Working president of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) and Industries Minister K.T.Rama Rao, who is also the son of the incumbent Chief Minister K.Chandrasekhar Rao, is aiming for a fifth straight victory in Sircilla, a Communist party bastion turned BRS citadel. Veteran Communist leader Chennamaneni Rajeshwara Rao represented the Sircilla constituency five terms - four times (1967, 1978, 1985, 1994) on behalf of the CPI and once (2004) as the TDP candidate. The constituency is set to witness an interesting battle of ballots on November 30 with the Congress fielding K.K.Mahander Reddy, 62, an advocate by profession, who had contested from Sircilla thrice in 2009, 2010 (by-election) and 2018 elections unsuccessfully. In 2009, Mr.Reddy, who contested as an independent candidate, lost by a slender margin of 171 votes to Mr.Rama Rao. In the last elections (2018), Mr.Rama Rao defeated Mr.Reddy, who contested on behalf of the Congress party, by a huge margin of 88,000-plus votes. A native of Namapur in Mustabad mandal of Rajanna Sircilla district, Mr.Reddy is now extensively touring the constituency relying on “anti-incumbency” and the Congress party’s six guarantees to turn the tide in his favour. BJP nominee G.Rani Rudrama Reddy, who holds post-graduation degrees in computer applications as well as journalism, is harping on the party’s main slogans of “double- engine government” and “women empowerment” apart from development of Sircilla power loom cluster to garner support of voters. Weavers, including power loom workers, form a formidable force of the total electorate of 2,44,426 in Sircilla constituency. Family members of Gulf migrant workers and Gulf returnees, beedi workers constitute a sizeable chunk of the voters in the constituency comprising Yellareddypet, Gambhiraopet, Sircilla, Thangallapally, Mustabad and Veernapally mandal. The weavers and the working class hold the key in deciding the electoral fortunes of the 21 candidates in the election race from Sircilla seat. Political analysts feel that the poll outcome will be determined by the issues concerning the power loom weavers and workers, Gulf expatriates and returnees and other working class in the textile hub. The ruling BRS’s campaign is centered on its claims of expanding irrigation cover, making Sircilla a bustling textile hub by a slew of initiatives, such as giving an impetus to the apparel industry and placing bulk orders of 1 crore Bathukamma sarees worth over ₹350 crore from the State government every year, ensuring sustainable income for the weavers. The Rajanna Sircilla district has a medical college, a JNTU-H college, an agricultural college, a KG to PG institution and various other educational institutions. However, the Opposition parties contest the claims of the persons at the helm on “reverse migration” to the textile hub owing to the revival of the power loom sector. A large number of youth mainly belonging to the tribal villages in Veernapalli, Yellareddypet and various other mandals in the constituency are still toiling hard in Gulf countries mostly as unskilled workers to support their families back home, points out independent candidate Donikeni Krishna, who entered the poll fray to highlight the cause of Gulf migrants. They are earning valuable foreign exchange for the country and it is the bounden duty of the governments to formulate a comprehensive NRI policy and set up a Welfare Board for Gulf workers, he insisted. The traditional handloom sector needs the patronage of the governments to keep the rich weaving traditions alive, opines Bhaskar, a weaver of Sardar Nagar in Sircilla. It is imperative to make weavers the owners of the units, provide them with highspeed air jet looms and above all empower them politically to bring about qualitative change in their lives, says another weaver of the textile town.
Source: The Hindu
Negotiation phase for India is practically over at the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) with agreement on supply chains already signed and talks almost over on clean and fair economy. It must move cautiously now to protect space for the domestic policy action, according to a trade policy think tank. The three areas, on which the 14-member IPEF has arrived at a substantial understanding, place demands related to environment and labour standards, and put trade restrictions on signatories.“There is not enough scope for altering the substantially concluded texts through the domestic consultation of legal scrutiny processes…. India must ensure that the new commitments do not overly restrict its policy space or tax revenue generation abilities,” co-founder of Global Trade Research Initiative Ajay Srivastava said in a report. The IPEF members are also negotiating on trade, but India is not part of the discussions. India’s decision to stay out of the trade pillar, which focuses on digital trade, labour, and other sectors, aligns with its broader strategy of retaining regulatory autonomy and outside pressure must be resisted to join those talks, the report said. The agreement on supply chains signed in the San Francisco round of ministerial discussions aims to enhance cooperation and resilience in critical sectors. One clause of the agreement deals with the issue of ‘export restrictions’. India imposes such restrictions to curb rising prices for essential commodities like rice and onions. India should not agree to not using the export restriction clause and accept policy restrictions, GTRI said. The IPEF seeks to restrict its members from trading critical materials or technology to China. This will be a challenging task for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as most of their trade is with China. “The emphasis on labour standards, particularly in the context of India’s labour-intensive exports, requires a nuanced approach to avoid external imposition of standards that might not align with India’s socio-economic realities” according to GTRI. India is already implementing many of the obligations related to anti-corruption pledge. Accepting new obligations would make domestic actions legally enforceable and open to international scrutiny.“Commitments related to the effective administration of tax policy might curtail the ability to raise tax revenue. These must be studied in detail and at no point should a situation arise that India might need outside inputs to change tariffs or impose trade restrictions,” Srivastava said. The IPEF Clean Economy Agreement makes partners commit to actively pursue their respective pathways to net-zero emission economies. Partners are expected to decarbonize and reduce the climate impact of the transportation sector. “India also should not agree to minimum standards on clean energy products and technologies for domestic markets. This would prevent producers from selling in their domestic markets and relying on imports,” the report said.
Source: Financial Express
After successful conclusion of a preliminary free trade agreement (FTA) last year, India and Australia have started discussions to take bilateral ties forward in areas such as digital trade, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), traditional knowledge, labour, and sports, two people aware of the development said. New Delhi and Canberra concluded the seventh round of talks regarding a comprehensive deal on October 20, agreeing to pursue negotiations on five tracks and 14 new areas, including digital trade, government procurement, MSMEs, traditional knowledge, sports, gender, environment, innovations, space, labour, and competition policy, they added requesting anonymity. “While each partner has identified potential areas of cooperation, both will finally converge on areas of common interests, and take the negotiations further. Meanwhile, formal talks on five tracks – remaining goods, services, digital trade, government procurement, product-specific rules of origin (ROO-PSRs) -- have been progressed fast,” one official said. According to official data of the commerce ministry, India’s exports to Australia jumped 17% to $4.9 billion in the first six months (April-September) of 2023-24 while imports fell by 24.6% to $8.3 billion. India key exports to Australia are petroleum products, pharmaceuticals, iron and steel products, electrical machinery, and garments. Its chief imports are coal, gold, iron ore, pulses and minerals. “Most of the imports are feeding to our domestic industries as raw materials,” the second official said. After operationalising the Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) with Australia in December last year, the two partners agreed to pursue a wider deal, a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) and have been working on its contours since February. India and Australia are looking to enhance the scope of ECTA, signed on April 2, 2022, and ratified by parliaments of the two countries last November. During Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Australia in May, he and his counterpart Anthony Albanese reiterated their commitment to concluding CECA by the end of this year. “The talks for expanding scope of ECTA proves that the deal is mutually beneficial and has immense potential to grow further,” the second official said. The impact of FTA between India and Australia is visible. Australia has become India’s 10th top export destination in April-October 2023 with exports of $5.48 billion, with about 16% year-on-year growth, he added. According to the Australian trade department, in 2022 India was Australia’s 6th largest trading partner with two-way trade in goods and services valued at $46.5 billion. The comprehensive FTA will take economic ties between the two countries to a strategic level as Australia is expected to offer assured supplies of critical minerals such as lithium and cobalt to India without any disruption, the second official said. The two sides will, however, have to deal with tricky issues such as Australia’s demand for greater access to India’s market for its wines and agricultural products, the officials said.
Source: Hindustan times
The RBI's decision to tighten norms for unsecured personal loans is credit positive because lenders will need to allocate higher capital for such loans, thus improving their loss-absorbing buffers, Moody's Investors Service said on Monday. The Reserve Bank last week raised risk weights on unsecured retail loans, credit cards and lending to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) by 25 percentage points. Moody's said unsecured loans have been growing rapidly in the past few years, exposing financial institutions to a potential spike in credit costs in case of sudden economic or interest rate shocks. The tightening of underwriting norms through higher risk-weighted assets is credit positive because lenders will need to allocate higher capitals for such loans improving their loss-absorbing buffers and may dampen their growth appetite, Moody's said in a statement. However, the impact of the new underwriting rules could vary among individual lenders depending on their exposure to unsecured loans, it added. Last week, US-based S&P Global Ratings had said that the RBI's decision to tighten norms for unsecured consumer credit is likely to hit banks' capital adequacy by 60 basis points. The move could lead to higher lending rates, lower credit growth and increase the need for capital raising among weak lenders, it added.
Source: Business-Standard
Christmas and New Year demand from US and European buyers amid persistently high inflation in those markets has failed to bring cheer to the country's apparel trade. Exporters from Tiruppur, the Tamil Nadu town that accounts for 55% of the country's apparel exports, said global brands have bought low-priced garments like simple t-shirts that cost around $2 per piece, in contrast to fashion garments and jackets priced $8-10 per item that they bought last year during the holiday season. Traditionally, shoppers in the US and Europe prefer to buy high-priced items during the Christmas and New Year period. "Surprisingly, our overseas bulk buyers say that this year the shoppers are buying items like innerwear and t-shirts, and are not much inclined to costlier garments," said Raja Shanmugam, managing director of Tiruppur-based knitwear companyWarsaw International. Both the US and Europe are struggling with high inflation, caused by a ramp up in demand after the pandemic and supply chain disruptions due to the Russia-Ukraine war, among other reasons. "Leading global brands have taken low-priced items this year for the holiday season. After the 2008-09 economic crisis, we are witnessing this trend for the first time," said Shanmugam, also a former president of Tiruppur Exporters Association. Added K Balakrishnan, partner of Tiruppur-based knitted garment manufacturing and exporting firm Aahana International: "People are talking about lower demand in the US and Europe. We are a supplier to Australia and there too we are facing a similar trend. The situation is gloomy." KM Subramanian, president of the Tiruppur Exporters Association said, the Christmas and New Year demand this year is down by 40%. "We were hopeful that demand for the holiday season would pick up from September. But unfortunately, that did not happen. The smaller units, in particular, had been hard hit."
Source: Retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com
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An essential part of the solution is the DNA marker technology developed by Haelixa that enables complete traceability of materials. These markers survive all production process steps, validating that the end product is identifiable. “This innovative technology employs distinct DNA tailored for each project, establishing a unique identity for the material,” explains Holly Berger, Marketing Director at Haelixa. “Once the DNA is integrated into the material, it becomes irremovable, impervious to falsification or alteration.” Handling is straightforward: the DNA marker is fed into the spinning process with the preparation oil, for example. The preparation system is modified accordingly. Further feeding options are currently being developed. The concept is complemented by atmos.io, Oerlikon’s digital platform, which records and evaluates extensive production and process data during the yarn manufacturing process. Atmos.io gives the yarn its digital identity during its time on Oerlikon systems, from the melt to the packaged package. This technology has been used successfully for some time to monitor the production process. With atmos.io, deviations in process parameters and yarn data can be identified and rectified within a very short time, which in turn keeps the yarn quality stable and reduces waste rates. Combining both technologies enables clear traceability of the yarn produced, even in the downstream process steps. Hence, the yarn’s components, qualities, manufacturing conditions, and origin are traced beyond doubt in the finished garment. “The unique DNA carries the ‘roots’ of the yarn digitally recorded in atmos.io into the everyday life of the end consumer,” says Jochen Adler, CTO at Oerlikon Manmade Fibers. The textile end products meet the requirements of the digital product passport required by the EU, which contains the information needed to assess their life cycle assessment and circularity. Initial long-term tests have shown 100% traceability of the yarns in the POY and FDY spinning process. If the yarn manufacturer relies on the atmos.io platform, production systems can be adapted relatively easily to use the DNA markers.
Source: Indian Textile Magazine
Santoni Shanghai Knitting Machinery Co., Ltd., made an appearance at the ITMA Asia + CITME 2022, and is honored to announce that it has received regulatory approval from Chinese authorities for its proposed acquisition of Terrot GmbH, a leading manufacturer of circular knitting machines in Germany. The acquisition represents a pivotal step in Santoni’s strategy to advance the circular knitting machine industry. The integration of Terrot into the Santoni ecosystem is projected to increase Santoni’s production capacity and boost its market share, and in conjunction with other strategic objectives, firmly solidify Santoni’s position as the leading manufacturer in the industry, with unrivaled scale, depth of innovation and expertise. Seeking to meet rising demand for high-end circular knitting products, Santoni has pursued an Ecosystem Strategy in recent years, aiming to unify a highly fragmented industry and enhance innovation, sustainability and digitalization to more effectively meet market needs. The deployment of both parties’ latest innovation practices, textile automation offerings, integrated enterprise services, C2M solutions, and a platform for designers “Materialliance”, will allow Santoni Shanghai and Terrot to connect and bridge demand and offer of circular knitted products, delivering substantial added value to clients. By incorporating Terrot’s offerings, particularly in the double jersey and jacquard sector, Santoni stands to gain a competitive edge in offering high-efficiency machines known for their superior performance, low maintenance, and cost-effectiveness. Highlighting this shift, Terrot’s patented UCC 572-T will be showcased at the upcoming ITMA Asia + CITME 2022 in the Santoni’s Shanghai premises. This state of the art high-feeder transfer jacquard machine for sports and leisurewear in fine gauges will offer a glimpse into the potential of future collaboration. “I am very excited about today’s announcement,” said Gianpietro Belotti, CEO of Santoni Shanghai. “The acquisition of Terrot, including the reputable Pilotelli brand, will allow us to deliver on our commitment to building a stronger, more consolidated global ecosystem capable of yielding a sustained competitive advantage in the circular knitting machine industry. Looking ahead, we aim to cultivate an even more extensive talent pool and solutions portfolio, creating synergies that empower us to deliver a superior knitting experience to our customers.” “Today’s excellent news represents the coming together of two outstanding teams,” said Robert Czajkowski, Managing Director of Terrot GmbH. “Santoni Shanghai’s strategic acquisition broadens our global manufacturing capabilities, augments our technological expertise, and strengthens every link along the supply chain, allowing us to offer innovative textile performances to the global market more effectively.” “We look forward to upholding Terrot’s ‘Made in Germany’ heritage while further growing its strong brand at Santoni,” said Dirk Lange, Terrot GmbH Co-Managing Director. “With our shared passion for innovation and our mutual vision for a more efficient and sustainable textile and apparel industry, we are poised to drive incredible transformation by enhancing the production of superior textile machinery and inspiring customers with fresh approaches to growth.” Following the acquisition, Terrot will continue to operate under the leadership of managing directors Robert W. Czajkowski and Dirk Lange. Santoni Shanghai plans to maintain Terrot’s headquarters in Chemnitz, Germany, along with its facilities, brands, and practices.
Source: Textile World
Grafton Apparel Ltd. today announces that its shareholders have entered into a definitive sale agreement with an affiliate of Stern Partners Inc., a Canadian private investment company controlled by Ronald N. Stern. Grafton will continue to independently operate and grow its retail and ecommerce businesses – Tip Top, George Richards and Mr. Big & Tall – in the Canadian market. Stern Partners is a Canadian investment firm with more than 30 years of experience investing in a diverse range of operating companies, including extensive long-term interests in the apparel industry. “Across Tip Top and our Big & Tall stores, Grafton Apparel offers unparalleled quality, value, and style that has delivered record results,” says Lance Itkoff, President and CEO of Grafton. “We are the definitive go-to solution for men’s workplace and event apparel as well as the only nationwide chain catering exclusively to the Big & Tall customer. Stern Partners brings us the benefit of strategic Canadian investors who understand the retail landscape and we look forward to leveraging their insight and resources to help us deliver even better value to our customers and enhanced growth for Grafton.” “The growth of the retail apparel market in Canada has been an area of interest for us. Grafton’s commitment to delivering quality and value to consumers, backed by a strong team, has created a growth trajectory that we want to support,” says Daniel Cairns of Stern Partners. “We are excited to partner with the strong team at Grafton as we turn the page into this next chapter together.” The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and is expected to be finalized over the coming weeks. National Bank Financial acted as exclusive financial advisor and Davies Ward Phillips Vineberg acted as legal advisor to the Company on the transaction. Norton Rose Fulbright acted as legal advisor to the Purchaser.
Source: Textile World
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT), in the first 10 months of this year, Vietnam’s import-export revenue reached US$558 billion, down 9.6% year on year, with exports dropping 7.1% and imports falling 12.3%. The results make it challenging to fulfil the goal for the whole year, as from now to the end of the year, the revenue must reach US$71 billion which is hard in the context of fierce strategic competition among world powers, increasing uncertainty and slow global economic recovery, the ministry said. In this context, the MoIT is rolling out various measures to support businesses in promoting exports. Do Ngoc Hung, head of the Vietnam Trade Office in the US, said that the agency is working to strengthen the connections between local buyers with Vietnamese suppliers, while assisting the selling of Vietnamese products in the distribution system of the US. Meanwhile, Mac Quoc Anh, Vice President and General Secretary of the Hanoi Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises said that businesses hope that the State Bank of Vietnam and commercial banks consider the reduction of conditions for loan borrowing by 50% and only apply basic conditions, thus enabling enterprises to access loans more easily with larger amount. Anh held that the most important thing at the moment is to “warm up” the overall demands, helping business clear their inventories and get more cash flow for production and business activities. He advised companies to actively engage in connections and promotion programmes in localities across the country, especially far-flung areas to stimulate people's consumption.
Source: The English.vov.vn
