NATIONAL

• Govt plans to extend NPOP organic certificate to textile, cosmetic, AYUSH products
• RCEP nations committed to resolving issues with India: PRC
• Poor demand shuts 20 textile mills around Surat
• Raymond to hive off cash spinner textile, apparel biz
• Rupee recovers to end flat on US-China trade deal hopes
• Special Handloom and Textile Expo-2019 underway

INTERNATIONAL

• Global Textile Raw Material Price 07-11-2019
• China agrees with US to cancel tariffs in phases
• Pakistan agrees to settle Soviet-era trade dispute with Russia: Report
• Removing tariffs would reduce recession risk
• Pakistan Exports to China Increases After Execution Of CPFTA-II: Razak

Govt plans to extend NPOP organic certificate to textile, cosmetic, AYUSH products

NEW DELHI: To boost export of organic products, the government plans to extend its existing certification to textile, cosmetics and ayurveda, yoga, naturopathy, unani, Unani, sidha and homeopathy (AYUSH) products, agri-export promotion body APEDA Chairman Paban K Borthakur said on Thursday. At present, organic foods are certified through the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP) of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) under the Commerce Ministry and the Participatory Guarantee System for India of the Agriculture Ministry. "NPOP, launched in 2001, is the world's largest organic certification programme. As a step further, NPOP now proposes to enter into organic AYUSH products, organic textiles and organic cosmetics," Borthakur said after inaugurating the global trade fair on organic products 'Biofach India' in Greater Noida, Uttar Pradesh. Since 2006, the NPOP has been recognised by the European Union and Switzerland. India has a similar agreement with the US, he said. As a result of these agreements, Indian organic products are being exported to these countries without the need for re-certification, he said in a statement. Noting the NPOP has laid the foundation of organic movement in the country, the APEDA chairman said it has played a key role over the years to establish the credibility of India's organic sector in national and international trade.

Source: Economic Times

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RCEP nations committed to resolving issues with India: PRC

The member nations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) are ready to jointly work to address New Delhi’s concerns, China said yesterday after India decided not to join the mega trade deal. Chinese vice commerce minister and top trade negotiator Wang Shouwen also expressed confidence that the differences would be resolved by the end of this year.  Wang said China and the other member states respected India’s outstanding concerns. “We must, together with India, work hard to solve these problems. India must decide on the basis of this resolution whether to enter into the agreement,” Wang was quoted as saying by a top Hong Kong-based newspaper. Fifteen nations from the Asia-Pacific region–the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus Japan, China, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand–agreed on the outline of the trade pact early this week. The current member states would settle the ‘very few remaining questions’ around market access before the end of the year, he added. The Chinese foreign ministry a day before had said Beijing will follow the principle of ‘mutual understanding and accommodation’ to resolve the outstanding issues raised by India.

Source: Fibre2fashion

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Poor demand shuts 20 textile mills around Surat

Fall in demand and decline in production rate is severely affecting textile dyeing and processing mills around Surat. Around 20 of the nearly 350 mills there have closed in the last three months. And those running are functioning at 50-70 per cent capacity. The trend is being attributed to reduced purchasing power, changed taste from polyester and government. Owners were expecting demand to rise during the festive season, but daily production has gone down to 3 crore metres per day, which at 100 per cent capacity, is 4.5 crore metres per day. Those mills that downed shutters recently include around three each from Sachin and Pandesara, two to three in Surat and two in Kadodara. Of the remaining 325 mills, operational workforce capacities have been reduced to 65 per cent labourers only, according to a report in a top English-language daily. According to president of South Gujarat Textile processors Association (SGTPA) Jitu Vakhariya, most of the units are working in single shift with two weekly holidays. Once closed down, it is very costly and difficult to restart a unit. Therefore, many processors have not closed down their units, but cut down its capacity by half, he said. He said some of the owners are operating only half of their machines and stopped the second shift as production costs have also increased by 15-25 per cent due to rise in labour and raw material costs. On the other hand, less production per day results in lower efficiency, more fuel consumption at times and even more cost per unit, he added. Another processor, who runs three units—two in Sachin and one at Palsana—said purchasing power has reduced to a great extent in the last one year. Customers who once purchased bulk of 30,000 metre material of a quality have now reduced the off take to 10,000-15,000 metres. This slump is mainly due to reduced demand of polyesters. The mill owner has lower quantity of job work now compared to a year ago when he used to get job work for 2 lakh metre of material at the start of the festive season. Now, the flow has reduced to 1 lakh metre only.

Source: Fibre2Fashion

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Raymond to hive off cash spinner textile, apparel biz

MUMBAI: Industrialist Gautam Singhania is separating the flagship textile and apparel businesses from Raymond to a new entity. The existing Raymond will retain the real estate, auto component and consumer products businesses, which had a combined revenue of Rs 1,549 crore in fiscal 2019. The demerged lifestyle business, with revenue of Rs 5,284 crore, will be listed on the stock exchanges, mirroring the shareholding structure of Raymond. Raymond shareholders will be getting an equal number of shares of the new entity. The bifurcation of the diversified enterprise, according to Singhania, will simplify the structure and, more importantly, the lifestyle-focused entity will not have the “conglomerate discount” of the undivided Raymond in the stock market. Raymond has a market cap of Rs 4,135 crore based on the scrip’s Thursday closing price of Rs 674 on the BSE. Investors like focus and the restructuring is aimed at that, the chairman said. The latest move comes even as Singhania is engaged in an arbitration with his father Vijaypat to settle a dispute regarding allocation of a duplex flat in JK House in south Mumbai. The son and father’s estrangement traces to 2015 when the latter gifted Singhania his 37% stake in Raymond. Singhania said his dream is to be just a shareholder and let professionals manage the businesses. To begin with, Singhania will be merging Raymond Apparel and Scissors Engineering with Raymond. Raymond Apparel houses the Rs 1,622-crore branded retail business while Scissors Engineering is into auto components. Thereafter, the lifestyle business will be separated from Raymond and parked in a new company. The denim and the wholesale shirting businesses will, however, be retained within Raymond. The denim business is a 50:50 joint venture with European player UCO. There is no benefit obtained by the promoter from the proposed restructuring, Raymond said. In a parallel development, JK Investo, one of the promoters of Raymond, will put in Rs 350 crore in the company through equity and convertible preference stock. The fund infusion will pare Raymond’s over Rs 2,500-crore debt and increase the promoters’ overall stake in the company to 48% from 44% once the preference stock is converted into equity. JK Investo had recently sold 20 acres of land in Mumbai to Virtuous Retail

Source: Times of India

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Rupee recovers to end flat on US-China trade deal hopes

Mumbai: The rupee pared its initial losses to settle flat at 70.97 against the US dollar on Thursday after the US-China trade deal hopes enthused investor sentiments. Sustained foreign fund inflows supported the domestic unit though the gains were capped by hardening crude oil prices that breached the USD 62 per barrel mark, forex brokers said. At the interbank foreign exchange market, the rupee had opened weak at 71.10 against the US dollar. During the day, the domestic unit fluctuated between a high of 70.88 and a low of 71.11. The rupee finally settled at 70.97, unchanged from its previous close. "After opening on a weaker note, the rupee rose marginally against the US dollar after comments from the Chinese ministry that China and the US have both agreed to cancel in phases the tariffs imposed during their prolonged trade war," said Gaurang Somaiyaa, Forex & Bullion Analyst, Motilal Oswal Financial Services Private Ltd. Somaiyaa further said that the optimism regarding the US-China trade deal has led to an appreciation in the rupee and across major equity markets. On the domestic market front, the 30-share Sensex ended 183.96 points, or 0.45 per cent higher at 40,653.74. Similarly, the broader NSE Nifty ended with a gain of 46 points, or 0.38 per cent, at 12,012.05. Foreign funds purchased shares worth Rs 1,011.49 crore from the capital markets on a net basis on Wednesday, provisional data showed. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, fell 0.12 per cent to 97.83. Meanwhile, the 10-year government bond yield was at 6.51 per cent on Thursday. Brent crude futures, the global oil benchmark, rose 1.31 per cent to trade at USD 62.55 per barrel. The Financial Benchmark India Private Ltd (FBIL) set the reference rate for the rupee/dollar at 70.8861 and for rupee/euro at 78.5116. The reference rate for rupee/British pound was fixed at 91.3207 and for rupee/100 Japanese yen at 65.00.

Source: Economic Times

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Special Handloom and Textile Expo-2019 underway

TAMULPUR: Special Handloom and Textile Expo-2019 are underway at Tamulpur. It has been organized by BRAWFED in collaboration with the Indian Handloom and Textile Development Commission from November 25 in the district of Baksa.  In this special expo organized by BRAWFED, 40 stalls from Hariyana, Panjab, Jammu, and Kashmir and Assam, including the four districts of Bodoland Territorial Area District area, have participated. A local stall from Tamulpur, Bolkol, attracted customers for its theme on cleanliness. Bolkol gifted one tree to every customer to make people aware of global warming. CAO Purabi Das told media persons that weavers of Assam, as well as the Northeast, had been facing problems to sell their handloom products. Bolkol was trying to provide a market to the weavers by selling handloom products through the website bolkol.com. Sale of more than Rs 1 crore is expected by Mridul Baishya, Technical Instructor of BRAWFED, in the expo.

Source: The Sentinel

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Global Textile Raw Material Price 07-11-2019

Source: Global Textiles

Note: The above prices are Chinese Price (1 CNY = 0.14268 USD dtd. 07/11/2019). The prices given above are as quoted from Global Textiles.com.  SRTEPC is not responsible for the correctness of the same.

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China agrees with US to cancel tariffs in phases

The United States and China recently agreed to a phased rollback of tariffs imposed during the months-long trade war, according to the Chinese commerce ministry, whose spokesperson Gao Feng said yesterday that both the countries must simultaneously start removing some tariffs on each other's goods to ensure they are able to reach a ‘phase one’ deal. The removal of tariffs is an important condition for the sparring countries to come to an agreement, he said at a press briefing. He did not, however, offer a timeline. China reportedly wanted the United States to drop the 15 per cent tariff that went into effect on September 1 on about $125 billion worth of Chinese goods. It is also seeking relief from earlier 25 per cent tariffs on about $250 billion of imports from machinery and semiconductors to furniture. A deal may be signed this month by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a yet-to-be determined location, according to a news agency report.

Source : Fibre2fashion

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Pakistan agrees to settle Soviet-era trade dispute with Russia: Report

ISLAMBAD: Pakistan has decided to sign a deal with Russia to end a 39-year trade dispute, which Islamabad hopes will allow Moscow to invest over USD 8 billion in the cash-strapped country, according to a media report on Thursday. The trade dispute, which goes back to the days of the Soviet Union, involves USD 117 million and many unsuccessful efforts have been made in the past to end the dispute. According to a report in The Express Tribune, Pakistan will return USD 93.5 million to Russia within 90 days of the signing of the agreement and clear pending exporters' claims amounting up to USD 23.8 million as per the settlement agreements reached in 2016-17. "The efforts to sign the deal with Russia were kicked off by the previous Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz government and the incumbent regime of Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided to execute it. The Pakistan government has authorised its ambassador to Russia to sign the deal," the report said. The trade dispute negatively affected the relations between Russia and Pakistan and it is hoped that the settlement would open doors for enhanced bilateral political, economic and diplomatic relations between the two countries. The report said that Russia has conveyed to Pakistan that it would invest USD 8 billion in Pakistan's energy sector and the Pakistan Steel Mills. But according to Russian law, it cannot invest in countries with which it has disputes. The deal will enable Russia to invest in different sectors in Pakistan, officials told the newspaper. According to the history of the case, the then Soviet Union used to buy textile and other materials from Pakistan in the 1980s. For this purpose the USSR opened two bank accounts in the National Bank of Pakistan (NBP), with funds getting deposited in the accounts by the Economic Affairs Division through State Bank of Pakistan. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, some exports payments were left unpaid and as the trade dispute got prolonged. Pakistani companies got stay orders in the Sindh High Court, barring the NBP from transferring funds of Russian banks held in its two accounts since 1996. The Sindh High Court in its decision on October 4, 2019 allowed an application for the passing of a compromise deal as all the parties had reached a settlement agreement outside the court, the report said. "The amount maintained in the two accounts with the NBP is sufficient pay off USD 93.5 million to Russia as well as clear the pending claims of exporters to the tune of USD 23.8 million," the report said. Pakistan's relations with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years. Islamabad has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Moscow. In July 2019, Gen Oleg Salyukov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Land Forces of Russia visited Pakistan. In August 2018, Deputy Defence Minister of Russia Col Gen Alexander Fomin visited Pakistan to participate in the first Russia-Pakistan Joint Military Consultative Committee (JMCC) meeting on security and defense. Pakistan Army chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa visited Russia in April 2018.

Source: News Indian Express

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Removing tariffs would reduce recession risk

(CNN) - The trade war is doing so much damage to the world economy that the United States and China might just roll back some of their destructive tariffs. That's just what is needed to avoid a recession. On Thursday, China revealed that the two sides are talking not only about avoiding an escalation scheduled for December, but removing some existing tariffs. If that becomes reality, it would be a strong step in the right direction, especially if those tariffs stay off. For months, the trade drama focused on whether the clash would get worse, with ever more rounds of tariffs piling up on items like iPhones and video game consoles. Markets surged on every indication that an escalation could be averted, even when there were few concrete signs the tariffs might be reduced. The trade war is the No. 1 risk to the economy, both in the United States and around the world. American factories, slammed by weak global growth and trade tensions, have suffered three straight months of contraction. Business spending is weak, shrinking in consecutive quarters. Rolling back tariffs would ease the burden on businesses and households and boost confidence among CEOs who are reluctant to spend. "It's a much more optimistic view than we've heard in quite a while," said JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade. "Giving up tariffs is more positive because it means you are still moving commerce. Freezing tariffs means they're still in the way."

Wall Street doesn't like tariffs

The latest developments lifted US stocks on Thursday, with the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq zooming to fresh all-time highs. The Nasdaq is now up nearly 28% on the year. China-sensitive stocks, including Apple, Best Buy and Caterpillar, also advanced.CNN Business Fear & Greed Index of market sentiment was flashing "fear" just a month ago. Now, it's catapulted to "extreme greed," reaching its highest levels since the tax cut euphoria of late 2017. There is no guarantee any tariffs--or which ones--will actually get rolled back. Investors have learned the hard way that progress in trade negotiations is fragile, and another outbreak of tensions is just one tweet away."Until we actually see pen meet paper, I would warn people not to get carried away," said Kinahan. A spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce announced on Thursday that the two countries have talked about rolling back tariffs on each other as part of "constructive discussions" in the past two weeks. China is insisting the two sides simultaneously cancel tariffs before any preliminary trade agreement can be signed. Moreover, the spokesman said that the United States "agreed that they would like to remove some of the additional tariffs by phases." Such a step could be a gamechanger. Goldman Sachs recently told clients that while tariffs may have peaked, they are likely to stay at the current elevated levels through 2020. US officials have not confirmed the tariff developments. And it's not clear how these rollbacks would be enforced or when they would take effect. Earlier this week, Reuters reported that a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to sign a preliminary trade deal could be delayed until December.

Recession risk linked to fate of trade war

If no action is taken, Washington is scheduled to impose new tariffs on consumer-facing goods from China in December. At that point, nearly all imports from China will be subject to tariffs. Existing tariffs have been a thorn in the side of the US and global economies. The World Trade Organization recently warned of a "darkening outlook for trade" that could make this the weakest year for global trade growth in a decade. And the IMF has said the global economy is in a "precarious" position because of rising trade and geopolitical tensions. The pain from the trade war is obvious in America's manufacturing sector. US factories in September experienced their worst month in a decade, according to a survey by the Institute for Supply Management. The sector has contracted for three straight months, though the pace of the deterioration eased in October. Even so, ISM said that 12 of 18 manufacturing industries are now in contraction, including metals, apparel and textile mills. The good news is that the manufacturing turmoil has not completely infected the rest of the economy. Hiring remains resilient. Consumers are still spending. After very weak growth in September, the US service sector, which dwarfs manufacturing in size, rebounded last month. The chance of a recession in the United States over the next 12 months dipped to 29% in October, according to an updated model released by the New York Federal Reserve this week. That's down from 38% in August, which was the highest since the Great Recession. Rolling back tariffs could allow those recession risks to recede even further.

Source: Channel3000

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Pakistan Exports to China Increases After Execution Of CPFTA-II: Razak

ISLAMABAD: Adviser to Prime Minister on Commerce, Industries, Textile and Investment on Thursday said that Pakistani exports to China would increase considerably after the implementation of second phase of China Pakistan Free Trade Agreement (CPFTA) by December 1, 2019. During interview with China Economic Net, he said that China International Import Expo (CIIE) Shanghai provides good opportunity to Pakistani exporters to showcase their products in second largest import market of China. Prime Minister's adviser on Commerce, along with commerce ministers of various countries attended the inauguration ceremony of China International Import Expo (CIIE) Shanghai on November 06, inaugurated by President Xi Jinping, says a press release issued by Ministry of Commerce here. Adviser also met with Suzhou Water Purification Equipment Company that is working with Nestle and Pepsi and is one of renowned water desalination plants manufacturer, Anhui Easy Business Digital Technology Company that provides E-government, E-ports and digitalisation services to Chinese Ministry of Commerce and General Administration of China Customs, Northern Heavy Industries Group, the largest equipment supplier to cement, steel and mining. Around 63 countries registered for the exhibition and over 3,000 businesses from more than 150 countries are attending the China International Import Expo. This year's expo includes two key categories i.e. country pavilions and business stalls. 35 exporters from Pakistan have displayed their products in the Expo. The total covered area of exhibition halls is more than 300,000 square meters and more than 150 countries are participating.

Source: Urdupoint

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