"With our strong start to the year, especially first-quarter sales,” proudly stated Glenn Murphy, chairman and CEO of Gap, in a statement on Thursday. “The consumer has been operating pretty much for the last five-plus years in a very challenging environment,” Murphy told analysts in a call. Revenue at stores opened at least a year better up by 2 percent with global businesses at both Gap and Old Navy increasing by 3 percent respectively. Impressive hike at their online business, as revenue jum

Women at work in a Bangladeshi garment factory. Photograph: Jonathan Saruk/Getty Images A revised minimum wage could help women working in harsh conditions who have few other places to go, but employers say they are also suffering as a result of disrupted production. The bulldozers have moved on and the eight-storey Rana Plaza building, in which more than 1,120 workers died when it collapsed on 24 April, is nothing more than a gaping hole in the ground. For workers hurrying to t

Many members in the local textile industry say they have won plenty of export contracts for this year and that they are running at full capacity to meet deadlines. Nguyen An, general director of Garmex Saigon, said his firm had acquired a great deal of orders from foreign buyers and that the already-signed orders surpass its capacity by around 5%. In the last two years, export orders earned by Garmex Saigon have mainly come from the United States instead of the Europe Union as before. Besi

SHANGHAI'S quality watchdog said yesterday it was investigating a local textile company after its silk quilts were found to contain less filler than stated on the label. A 100 percent pure silk quilt made by Shanghai Homes Textile Co was found to contain 36.4 percent less silk filler than indicated on the label, the Beijing Consumer Association said last week. The quilt actually contained 1,907 grams of filler, compared to the 3 kilograms marked on the label. The Shanghai Quality and Technica

Cotton output in Tanzania, Africa’s fourth-biggest producer of the fiber, may drop 30 percent this year after lower prices discouraged growers and pesticide distribution was curbed, the Tanzania Cotton Board said. Output may decline from the 354,000 metric tons produced the previous season, Gabriel Mwalo, the board’s director of finance and administration, said in an interview yesterday in Dar es Salaam, the commercial capital. Plantings have been cut to 1.1 million hectares (2.7 million acres)

Peru has come up with six programs to improve the productivity of cotton in the country, and thereby to promote Peru’s cotton exports, said Minister of Agriculture, Milton von Hesse. The suggested programs are a result of the recent visit of a team of experts from Brazil and representatives of Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Peru. The Ministry of Agriculture (Minag), along with the visiting team of experts, has designed the National Competitiveness Plan, which aims at short and lon

Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association has decided to file a case in the Federal Shariat Court in an attempt to stop Pakistan Mercantile Exchange from futures trading in cotton. The recourse to legal action is aimed at preventing what ginners say anti-Shariah futures trading that will spell financial disaster for cotton growers, ginners and textile millers. In a statement, PCGA’s ex-executive member Ihsanul Haq said cotton ginners will hold meetings in all cotton zones shortly to decide its fut

Textile machinery manufacturer Lakshmi Machine Works (LMW) plans to expand the range of products manufactured at its subsidiary LMW Textile Machinery (Suzhou) in China. Director (Finance) R. Rajendran told The Hindu here on Thursday that the China subsidiary had made profits this year because of better price realisation. The manufacturing facility was functioning out of a ready-built factory now and land has been allotted to have its own premises. LMW would invest totally $12.5 million in Chin

State-owned Société de Gestion des Participations Industries Manufacturières (SGP-IM) has concluded an agreement with Taypa Tekstil Giyim, a Turkish company, to construct a multi-million dollar textile-clothing industry center in Algeria. The partnership is a part of the government’s efforts to promote joint public-private venture in the country and to attract foreign investment. The North African state’s textile and clothing industry has been on the decline for the past years and there are h

Ten thousand South African textile workers ended a two-day strike on Wednesday, which a major union described as a warning to employers who continue paying wages below the government prescribed rates. “We only wished it to be a warning to employers who fail to obey the law and who continue to underpay our members,” the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (SACTWU) said in a statement. According to the union, some employers were paying workers far below the government allowed w