MIAMI, Florida — January 2018 — Small businesses, retailers, manufacturers and designers across the United States and Latin America will get a boost for the summer when the Apparel Textile Sourcing Miami (ATS-M) trade show expands to Miami in May.

A comprehensive trade show and conference, ATS-M will take place May 21-23, 2018, at the Mana Wynwood Convention Center in Miami. The event will bring to Florida hundreds of international apparel and textile manufacturers from China, India, Bangladesh, the United States, Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico and many other countries and territories from across Central and South America and all around the globe.

Moishe Mana, Miami-based billionaire developer and CEO of Mana Group said: “We are committed to making Miami the nexus for commerce between Asia, North America, and Latin America. We’re excited to have ATS Miami join this initiative as the fashion and apparel industry is one of our core verticals.”

The ATS brand has established itself internationally with Apparel Textile Sourcing Canada, held every August in Toronto. In 2017 the event grew by more than 50 percent in attendees and international exhibits. The same formula of success is the basis for ATS-Miami.

Next to the hundreds of manufacturers’ booths and exhibits, ATS-Miami will deliver 3-days-worth of an unprecedented platform of global connections in manufacturing and fashion.

Attendees will gain new insights and information to best navigate and profit in the international sourcing process

Featured focus on Manufacturer Transparency, Speed & Responsiveness + benefits of Near Sourcing Americas

“The expansion of the ATS Brand to Miami is a direct response to the market demand and fills a significant gap for the US-&-Latin American markets,” said Jason Prescott, CEO of JP Communications, organizer of the event and parent-company to TopTenWholesale.com and Manufacturer.com, the most expansive network of business-to-business sourcing platforms in the U.S.  Millions of international members use these brands to locate wholesalers and manufacturers.

“ATS-Miami provides a unique opportunity for apparel and textile importers and retailers to intersect and access the most current importing information from the top industry insiders.  Imagine the time and money saved for the local and Latin importers.  The producers are coming from Asia to Miami,” Prescott said, emphasizing that China alone exports $42 billion in apparel a year to the US and $11 billion a year to Latin America.

Clay Hickson, VP Strategy & Business Development with Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production (WRAP) said, “The team at Apparel Textile Sourcing puts on great events and we’re excited to partner with them again in Miami.  We have partnered with ATS since the launch of the first event in Toronto, which has quickly grown to be an important apparel and fashion industry event in North America.”

ATS-M will feature three days-worth of seminars, panels and runway shows featuring acclaimed industry and government experts, covering topics from trade agreements to best practices with an eye on the changing Latin American market, as well as tips on how to choose overseas producers, plus new approaches on succeeding in the U.S. market.

“The ATS-Miami design pods and fashion show will include International apparel producers, Latin American artisans, Made-in-Americas manufacturers and active design students,” said Apparel Textile Sourcing Director John Banker.  “The runway at ATSM will knock the socks off of summer fashion!”

ATS-M will also feature:

• A “Made in USA” Pavilion, showcasing US-based manufacturers who source apparel and textiles from abroad for their finished goods, as well as US designers who have their designs produced into finished products overseas.
• The Americas Pavilion featuring products from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and more.
• A Summer 2018 Apparel and Textile Trends display, providing a first-hand look at the colors, patterns and textures that will be all the rage for the summer nights in Miami.

Apparel Textile Sourcing tradeshows are supported in coordination with a range of International and Domestic partnerships, including the Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textile and Apparel (CCCT), TopTenWholesale.com, Manufacturer.com, the Bangladesh High Commission, The Export Promotion Bureau of Bangladesh, Trade Development Authority Pakistan, India Exhibitions, Pro Mexico, Pro Colombia, ProNicaragua, Proesa, VESTEX, Worldwide Responsible Accredited Production, Canadian Merchandiser, Apparel Export Promotion Council, and The Sourcing Journal.

Posted February 9, 2018

Source: JP Communications

WASHINGTON — February 9, 2018 — Imports at the nation’s major retail container ports are expected to grow a healthy 4.9 percent during the first half of 2018 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to the monthly Global Port Tracker report released today by the National Retail Federation and Hackett Associates.

“We’re forecasting significant sales growth this year and that means retailers will have to import more merchandise to meet consumer demand,” NRF Vice President for Supply Chain and Customs Policy Jonathan Gold said. “With the benefits of pro-growth tax reform coming on top of solid fundamentals like higher employment and improved confidence, we expect a good year ahead.”

The import projection comes a day after NRF forecast that 2018 retail sales will grow between 3.8 and 4.4 percent over 2017’s $3.53 trillion. Cargo volume does not correlate directly with sales because only the number of containers is counted, not the value of the cargo inside, but nonetheless provides a barometer of retailers’ expectations.

Ports covered by Global Port Tracker handled 1.72 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units in December, the latest month for which after-the-fact numbers are available. With most holiday merchandise already in the country by then, the number was down 2.1 percent from November but up 8.4 percent year-over-year. A TEU is one 20-foot-long cargo container or its equivalent.

The total for 2017 was 20.5 million TEU, topping 2016’s record 19.1 million TEU by 7.6 percent.

January was estimated at 1.77 million TEU, up 4.1 percent year-over-year. February is forecast at 1.67 million TEU, up 14.8 percent from last year; March at 1.54 million TEU, down 1.1 percent; April at 1.71 million TEU, up 4.8 percent; May at 1.8 million TEU, up 2.8 percent, and June also at 1.8 million TEU, up 4.9 percent. The February and March percentages are skewed because of changes in when Asian factories close for Lunar New Year each year.

Those numbers would bring the first half of 2018 to a total of 10.3 million TEU, an increase of 4.9 percent over the first half of 2017.

All of the numbers above are slightly higher than reported in previous Global Port Tracker news releases because Florida’s Port of Jacksonville has been added to the report beginning this month to reflect its growing importance as a container port used by retailers.

“It’s clear that 2017 turned out to be a remarkable year in terms of import container volume,” Hackett Associates Founder Ben Hackett said. “That level of growth is difficult to sustain, however, and our models suggest that 2018 will continue to expand but only at about half that pace despite strong fundamentals that indicate a healthy economy and continued growth in consumer spending.”

Global Port Tracker, which is produced for NRF by the consulting firm Hackett Associates, covers the U.S. ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma on the West Coast; New York/New Jersey, Port of Virginia, Charleston, Savannah, Port Everglades, Miami and Jacksonville on the East Coast, and Houston on the Gulf Coast.

NRF is the world’s largest retail trade association, representing discount and department stores, home goods and specialty stores, Main Street merchants, grocers, wholesalers, chain restaurants and Internet retailers from the United States and more than 45 countries. Retail is the nation’s largest private-sector employer, supporting one in four U.S. jobs – 42 million working Americans. Contributing $2.6 trillion to annual GDP, retail is a daily barometer for the nation’s economy.

Hackett Associates provides expert consulting, research and advisory services to the international maritime industry, government agencies and international institutions

Posted February 9, 2018

Source: National Retail Federation (NRF)