The Kenyan Government is targeting the textile and clothing sector to create new job opportunities, with an aim to position Kenya as Africa’s top manufacturing and investment hub, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said at the inauguration of Origin Africa, 2014, Africa’s leading cotton, textile, and machinery trade fair. The President said the cotton textile and apparel sector value chain is labour-intensive, and therefore, key in addressing the unemployment and inequality challenges in Kenya.The

Bangladeshi garment manufacturers have started looking towards other destination such as China and India for source their raw materials as the local textile mills due to low pressure of gas and electricity supply disruption and poor transportation system have pushed up prices of their manufactured fabrics. Readymade garment (RMG) units, which used to prefer local fabrics and yarn, are unattractive to local produced fabrics. With sluggish demand in RMG units and shortage of gas and electricit

Vietnam's Garment 10 Corporation (Garco 10), one of the oldest garment companies in Vietnam which has grown to become one of Vietnam’s foremost apparel companies based in Hanoi. Its President, Mr Giang Duc Vu, offered Tanzania the opportunity to export unspecified quantity of cotton to the giant firm. At present the giant firm imports cotton from the United States and India but are also ready to import even from Tanzania, if Tanzania can guarantee quality and quantity supply of cotton require

Bangladeshi apparel products are losing edge in the US market to its competitors namely Vietnam, Cambodia, India and Indonesia, as buyers cut back their orders over safety and compliance issues imposed after Rana Plaza tragedy and Tazreen Fashions fire incident. The declining trend is apprehended to be continued in the months to come unless measures are taken to boost up buyers’ confidence, industry insiders say. For the seven months in a row, the country’s ready-made garment exports to US

The government may further revise cotton production target downward and set it at 13 million bales for the current season (2014-15) against the initial target of 15.1 million bales, following early termination of the crop, it is learnt. Official sources revealed to Business Recorder that second meeting of the Cotton Crop Assessment Committee (CCAC) for the cotton crop season 2014-15 will be held in the last week of the ongoing month. The government had earlier fixed cotton production target fo

A major crisis is brewing in the cotton sector in India, with a bumper harvest coinciding with a drastic cut in imports by China, the biggest buyer of the crop. And with global cotton prices plunging, farmers here are a worried lot as the huge investments they made in expanding the area of cotton cultivation in recent years would fail to pay off. Last week, key ministers of the government were busy in meetings, trying to evolve a policy to bail out millions of farmers whose livelihood is sudd

Bangladesh needs to address the challenges of energy, skilled human resources and poor infrastructure promptly to reach the target to export apparel items worth $50 billion by the end of 2021, industry insiders said yesterday. “Poor infrastructure is the main challenge to the growth of our exports. It takes about one day to transport goods from Gazipur or Narayanganj to Chittagong Port,” said Atiqul Islam, president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). He

Ample availability of domestic cotton, poor condition of yarn prices, downturn in global commodity prices including cotton and weakening economic growth in many parts of the world have all bunched together to depress fibre prices. In Pakistan, prospects of better cotton output than originally anticipated have also contributed to an easy outlook for cotton prices. Since nearly one week, cotton prices in our market have mostly remained range bound. According to Karachi brokers, seed cotton (Kapa

Textile sector associations have threatened a massive protest campaign and sit-ins from Nov 15 if the proposed plan to suspend gas supply to industry in Punjab is not reversed soon. Rejecting the four-month long gas closure plan, representatives of textile associations said the industry will continue 33 per cent gas consumption for industrial production, spokesperson for Pakistan Textile Exporters Association (PTEA) said on Wednesday. Attended by office-bearers of PTEA, Faisalabad Chamber

Chinese silk company uses APEC platform to highlight global plans Riding on the back of endorsements from global leaders during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders' meeting in Beijing, Chinese silk major High Fashion Silk (Zhejiang) Co Ltd is looking to spread its reach beyond the nation and enhance its standing as an icon of Chinese culture, a company official said on Tuesday. High Fashion Silk, a leading woven silk and knitting fabric producer from Xinchang in Zhejiang province