The 23rd edition of Bangladesh Apparel and Textile Exposition (Batexpo-2012), the biggest-ever apparel show, begins in the city today (Wednesday) with a high expectation of attracting higher foreign buyers and spot orders despite the recent campaign abroad highlighting the country's RMG sector's weaknesses, reports UNB. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is scheduled to inaugurate the three-day show at the Bangabandhu Internat-ional Conference Centre in the morning. Finance Minister AMA Muhith, Te

The exports of readymade garments from Bangladesh rose by 8.8 percent year-on-year to US$ 1.36 billion in November 2012, according to the data released by the Export Promotion Bureau (EPB). While woven garment exports fetched US$ 710.04 million, knitwear earned US$ 653.96 million, EPB statistics showed. Bangladesh has posted positive growth in its garment exports in spite of the ongoing debt crisis in several European nations, the traditional buyers of Bangladeshi clothing items. In Nov

The UK garment maker Armadillo Merino has won an award at the 'Startups Awards 2012' for its high quality woolen innerwears manufactured for professional risk takers such as military personnel, fire fighters and police. In a conversation with fibre2fashion, Mr. Andy Caughey, owner of Armadillo Merino, said, "We have received the UK national award (Startups Awards) for Product Business of the Year 2012 at London." The product business award is given for a new business which produces

Fashion and lifestyle destination ICONIC was awarded the ‘Most Admired Social Media Campaign’ for the year 2012 at the recently held Images RetailME Awards. Attended by some of the industry’s most exclusive and high profile delegates and commemorating retailing excellence in the region, the Awards recognize best performing retailers and retail practices across the Middle East. An ecstatic Raza Beig, CEO Splash & ICONIC accepted the award amidst loud cheers and enthusiastic applause from t

PPG Industries announced that it has entered into a technology license agreement with China-based Henan Billions Chemicals Joint Stock Co., Ltd., that will provide Henan Billions the right to use PPG’s technology for the manufacture of chloride-grade titanium dioxide (TiO2) on a worldwide basis. This agreement completes the license of PPG technology previously announced by both companies. Terms of the license agreement were not disclosed. "We are pleased to reach this worldwide technology lic

Johnston Textiles Inc. (JTI) has added the top 25 colors of its popular Interweave collection to its Lead Program of delivering fabrics in two-days to two-weeks of order. This is a follow up to the Odyssey Collection that kicked off the Lead Program earlier this year. "The success of the Odyssey Collection as part of the Lead Program drove our decision to grow the availability of fabrics with shorter lead times," said PJ Murphy, vice president of sales and marketing. "Interweave has been a to

Production growth of China’s textile industry slows down compared to last year, but the decline pace has narrowed. From January to October, national 37,000 textile enterprises above designated size realized a total industrial output value of 4.68129 trillion Yuan, a year-on-year growth of 11.3 percent, the growth rate fell 17 percentage points from the same period last year, and down 3.4 percentage points compared with the first quarter, but up 0.4 percentage points compared to January-Septemb

Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), the largest U.S. chemical maker by sales, applied for a federal permit to build the company’s biggest ethylene plant as cheap natural gas gives manufacturers a cost advantage. The plant in Freeport, Texas, would have capacity to make 1.5 million tons of ethylene a year, Nancy Lamb, a Dow spokeswoman, said today by phone. That’s the same size as Texas ethylene plants proposed by Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and it would be Dow’s largest in th

South Korean refiners will cut imports of Iranian crude during the six months to May by about a fifth from a year earlier, to avoid sanctions by Washington, government and industry sources said yesterday. Last week the United States granted 180-day waivers on Iran sanctions to China, India, South Korea and some other countries after they cut oil purchases from the Islamic Republic. “The cut in next year’s imports is expected to be by about 20 percent year on year,” an industry source who has d