Bangladesh intends to announce a new minimum wage for garment factory workers in early November. It took international pressure and a string of fatal factory accidents in recent months to get the government of Bangladesh to consider legislating a minimum wage increase for workers in the garment industry. The government is also hoping the increase will end a wave of strikes that hit nearly one-fifth of factories last month. Workers unions are seeking an increase of about 50 to 80 per cent, an

While the European Union is expected to open up its markets to duty-free imports from Pakistan next year, the country’s garment industry remains far from ready to grab the opportunity. Garment manufacturers claim the government’s restrictive import policies are blocking their access to new raw materials, which they require to diversify their product lines to take full advantage of the duty-free access under the EU’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences (GSP) Plus scheme. According to the Paki

Brazil has imported more than US$ 5 billion worth of textiles between the period of January and September, 2013, as per the estimates of Brazilian Association of Textile and Apparel (ABIT). According to a statement issued by ABIT, the sector also incurred a loss of 598,000 jobs during the first nine months of the year. As per the ‘Import?metro’, an ABIT indicator marking the value of imports of textiles entering Brazil, the country’s clothing imports grew by 4.5 percent year-on-year in val

The IX International Uzbek Cotton and Textile Fair closed in Tashkent. As a result contracts for purchase of more than 680,000 tons of Uzbek cotton fiber were signed, reported UzA national informative agency. Also contracts for supply of domestic textile products worth more than $1 billion were signed at the fair. Foreign participants of the fair, who arrived in Tashkent expressed great interest in expanding trade, economic and investment cooperation with Uzbekistan. The fair also presented mode

The country's knitwear exports fell by 4.177 million dollars to 385.197 million dollars during July-August 2013, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). It said that knitwear exports went down by over one percent as compared to the commodity's exports of 389.374 million dollars during July-August 2012. The PBS showed that in terms of volume, exports of knitwear however surged by 34 percent to 23,179 metric tons as compared to the commodity export of 17,358 metric tons, depicting a

Cotton consumption in Bangladesh will increase significantly in the current fiscal year (FY) 2013-14 due to continued export growth of readymade garment and yarn. Industry insiders said to meet the growing demand for yarn and fabric in the international and domestic markets, cotton consumption will increase nearly by 17 per cent to 0.7 million tonnes in the current financial year. They also said business relocation by the Chinese and other companies to Bangladesh have been increasing due t

Workers in a textile factory. REUTERS/Stringer Indonesian Textile Association chairman Ade Sudrajat said Indonesian textile exports had grown by three to four percent despite the global economic turbulence. “Exports rose despite the global economic slowdown,” Ade told Tempo at the JI Expo Kemayoran in Jakarta on Friday, October 18, 2013. Ade said textile and textile product (TPT) exports were predicted to reach US$13 billion this year, adding that the realization of TPT exports to August h

Thirty expert panels led by Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology will start inspecting garment factories by the end of this month to find structural flaws and ensure worker safety, a government official said yesterday. The inspection was supposed to start from September 15, but it was delayed due to a shortage of funds and the absence of a common checklist for inspection. “The donor agencies have finally agreed to release the proposed fund worth $24 million as expenditure fo

Another victory for luxury labels in the fight against counterfeiting. Gucci America Inc. was recently awarded 144.2 million dollars, equal to 89.2 million pounds, in damages by the federal court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, as well as a permanent injunction against a number of online companies involved in a web-counterfeiting scheme. Gucci filed the lawsuit back in May, accusing the defendants of trademark counterfeiting and ‘cybersquatting.’ The lawsuit was file against 100 businesses, who

A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) proposed between Sri Lanka and China will assist Sri Lanka to develop its garment and handloom textile industries as a way to eliminate poverty in rural areas. According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Economic Development of Sri Lanka, A Chinese delegation led by the Deputy International Trade Representative of the Ministry of Commerce of China Yu Jianhua, met with the Economic Development Minister Basil Rajapaksa, at the Ministry in Colombo for discussi