The Consumer Division of Sawgrass Technologies Inc. — a Charleston, S.C.-based developer of digital
printing technologies — had added three SubliJet IQ® sublimation ink colors formulated for use with
the Epson® Stylus Pro 4880 Inkjet printer.

Fluorescent Pink, Fluorescent Yellow and Blacklight Blue may be used as individual spot
colors or combined with CMYK, and are suitable for creating high-visibility safety apparel and
signage or for fashionable, psychedelic and retro looks. Sawgrass reports that images printed using
the Fluorescent Pink and Fluorescent Yellow colors are especially vivid in natural and black light.

Blacklight Blue is invisible in natural light and can only be seen when exposed to black
light. It is comparable to ink used on driver’s licenses or nightclub hand-stamps and is suitable
for identification, anti-piracy and novelty applications.

The Epson Stylus Pro 4880 Inkjet printer employs raster image processor software, features an
eight-cartridge configuration and has a 17-by-22-inch printing field. The sublimation printing
solution is supported by Sawgrass’s PartnersPlus program, which offers online product support,
technical phone support and a full product warranty.

April 5, 2011

AUSTRALIA — April 4, 2011 — Australian wool production is slowly rising, arresting a 20-year trend
of decline. Good seasonal conditions across eastern Australia, higher wool prices and a lift in the
retention of ewes and lambs has led the Australian Wool Production Forecasting Committee to
slightly lift its forecast for shorn wool production in 2010/11 to 340 million kilograms, up from
its forecast 335 mkg made in December 2010. “The small increase is due to a slight increase in
sheep shorn and average fleece weights,” Committee Chairman Russell Pattinson said.

In releasing its forecast today, the Committee noted that the increase in sheep shorn was, in
part, due to some early shearing due to seasonal conditions and in response to the strength of the
wool market.

The Committee has also noted a change in the diameter profile of the national clip with
reduced volumes of fine Merino wool being produced and an increased production of strong Merino and
cross-bred wool types, as was forecast in December.

The Committee has also released its first forecast for the 2011/12 season. The committee
expects shorn wool production to rise by 1% in 2011/12 to 345 mkg, due to a slight increase in
sheep numbers (68.3 million, an increase of 0.9% from the 2009/10 level of 67.7 million) and sheep
shorn. The increase in sheep numbers is in line with ABARES and Meat and Livestock Australia
forecasts.

Strong grower sentiment has been reported toward the retention of stock, especially Merinos.
This has been directly reflected in the significant decrease in the sheep turnoff, reported by the
Australian Bureau of Statistics together with data from MLA’s National Livestock Reporting Service
data. While the increase in sheep numbers and wool production may only be small, it certainly
suggests that the long run-down experienced since the early ’90s may be ending.

However, Western Australia is the exception.

“While the outlook for south-eastern Australia wool production in the coming year will
benefit from the excellent foundation laid by above average 2010/11 rainfall, the committee is
concerned with the poor seasonal conditions in Western Australia and will closely monitor this in
coming months,” Mr Pattinson added.

Posted on April 5, 2011

Source: Australian Wool Innovation Ltd.

MINNEAPOLIS — April 1, 2011 — Zepol Corp., a trade intelligence company, today announced another
major enhancement to its Trade Intelligence tools. The Dashboard tab enhancement allows users to
select specific criteria to be displayed within the Zepol interface for quick and easy analysis.
The Dashboard tab, based on customer requests, can be updated on a weekly basis with the newest
trade statistics.

“Zepol’s pursuit to continuously enhance our trade intelligence tools is a testament to our
ongoing commitment to our customers,” stated Paul Rasmussen, CEO & President of Zepol
Corporation. “The Dashboard feature will allow users to monitor their four most important searches
in one screen, thereby significantly improving efficiency and allowing for quick analysis of
products, competitors, and more.”

Each profile can be displayed numerically or in a Line, Pie, or Bar Chart, and users are able
to select the number of Items, Measure, and Time Frame. Professional and Enterprise users have
access to the Dashboard tab and can download the reports to Excel and schedule as an emailed
report. This innovative upgrade further sets Zepol apart as the leading trade intelligence company.

Posted on April 5, 2011

Source: Zepol Corp.

SITTARD, The Netherlands — March 30, 2011 — As a result of continued escalations in the costs of
key raw materials, DSM Engineering Plastics will increase prices on several engineering plastic
product lines in North America. Increases effective as of April 14, 2011 are as follows:

Akulon® Film Grades     +$0.12 per pound

Novamid® Film Grades  +$0.12 per pound

DSM Engineering Plastics, Inc. will increase the price of Akulon® polyamide polymer for use
in fibers, extrusion, and compounding effective as of April 4, 2011 as follows:

Akulon® Polyamide 6     +$0.12 per pound

Posted on March 30, 2011

Source: Royal DSM N.V.

For decades, the international textile community has been arguing about that fact that too many
exhibitions exist all over the world. However, in spite of all initiatives to stop this costly
trend, there is no end of the inflation of shows.

Another trend can be seen in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Exhibition organizers Messe
Frankfurt GmbH succeeded in attracting the German Engineering Federation (VDMA) Garment and Leather
Technology Association away from a cooperation with Koelnmesse GmbH to be the conceptual sponsor of
the IMB show for textile processing machinery in Cologne, Germany, after the close of IMB 2009. The
association is now Messe Frankfurt’s conceptual partner for a new show in Frankfurt. Maybe with the
idea to reduce the number of exhibitions, Messe Frankfurt established Texprocess, and will hold its
first edition May 24 to 27, 2011, alongside Techtextil 2011, the most popular exhibition for
technical textile applications. Texprocess, International Trade Fair for the Processing of Textiles
and Flexible Materials, will mainly show manufacturing equipment and technologies for the apparel
industry.

Techtextil

Techtextil 2011 will be held May 24 to 26. The organizers call it “International Trade Fair
for Technical Textiles and Nonwovens, the leading trade fair for the technical textiles and
nonwovens sectors.” However, the forthcoming INDEX in Geneva, is still the number-one venue for the
entire nonwovens sector only
(See ”
The
Rupp Report: INDEX, The Nonwovens Industry Summit,” www.
TextileWorld.com, March 8, 2011).

Techtextil is no doubt the world’s highlight for the combined technical textiles/nonwovens
sector, and an absolute must for every company and individual that is working with industrial
fabrics and is willing to enter new market opportunities. Fibers, fabrics, machinery, R&D, and
even retailers and wholesalers can find the solution under one roof for any new product relating to
industrial fabrics, including durable nonwovens. Nevertheless, with nearly 1,200 exhibitors from 45
countries and 24,000 trade visitors from 85 countries exhibiting at Techtextil 2009, Michael
Jänecke, brand director of Techtextil, is expecting at least the same figures regarding exhibitors
and visitors for this year’s show. Pre-sales figures show a positive trend.

Material Vision

In addition to Texprocess, also taking place in parallel to Techtextil is Material Vision,
Materials for Product Development, Design and Architecture International Trade Fair and Conference.

“Three trade fairs at the same time and at the same place — not only does this offer
significant synergies, but it is also of interest to both exhibitors and visitors in terms of cost
and time considerations,” Jänecke said. However, time will tell if three events plus a symposium at
the same time are not competing with one another and confusing not only the exhibitors of each
sector, but also — and even more — the visitors.

Communication

In the field of industrial textiles applications, it has been of major importance that there
be an ongoing discussion and cooperation among all interested parties. In this connection,
nanotechnology can play an important role, including nanofibers for various applications such as
filtration as well as nanoscale surface finishes including soil-release, abrasion-resistant,
conductive and luminescent. However, nanotechnology has not yet totally been explored. There is
still some strong hesitation because the results and influence of this technology are not yet fully
known.

Clever Products

Today, technical fibers must have additional properties such as antimicrobial and flame
resistance, warming and cooling qualities, or self-cleaning effects — or even
temperature-regulation, as in phase-change polyester fiber, which should neutralize temperature
fluctuations.

A Swiss manufacturer will demonstrate new high-performance fabrics including what it calls a
rechargeable drug-delivery textile whose approach turns around the improvement of factors such as
wellbeing, prevention and therapy. The textile base material can be impregnated individually with
substances that provide beneficial or therapeutic effects. Originally, the manufacturer conceived
the material for medical wellness in protective apparel or sportswear, but now, the plan is to use
it for dispensing drugs. The product was under development for more than seven years.

Composite Fabrics

Composite structures are probably the most promising sector of this industry in the next few
years. Using the right fibers for the right fabrics and combining them in different layers — even
with nonwovens — results in products with inherent characteristics that were impossible a few years
ago. Virtually every product is possible, and the further development of new resins and fibers such
as carbon opens new possibilities, where the skies are the limit. And textiles play an important
role in the sky: airplanes are constructed more with composite materials instead of steel, thanks
to the inherent qualities of composites and — first of all — much lower weight, which leads to
reduced fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.

Various companies are focusing on the prominent subject of sustainability, which is becoming
more and more a key factor for market success, mainly in the West, but also in Asia, thanks to the
increasing awareness for the environment.

For a cleaner environment, duroplastic and thermoplastic bonded layers are also applied for
rotor blades of wind-driven power-generating equipment. The discussion about alternative energy
production is again on the front pages of all newspapers and in the focus of television news around
the globe after the disaster in the Japanese nuclear plants. “These facts,” Jänecke said, “will
lead the producers of tailor-made industrial fabrics and products to the forefront of interest, and
I expect that this will lead them to considerable growth rates.”

March 29, 2011

Safety Components Fabric Technologies Inc., Greenville — an International Textile Group company —
has revamped the HydroMax™ water-repellent, mildew-resistant, breathable finish it applies to its
WeatherMax® outdoor fabric, woven using Greensboro, N.C.-based Unifi Inc.’s solution-dyed SaturaMax
solution-dyed yarns. The company has replaced the traditional C8-based polytetrafluoroethylene
chemistry previously used in the finish with more eco-friendly C6-based chemistry, and reports the
revamped finish retains its original high-performance characteristics.

“Our technical staff and suppliers have been working on making our fabric even more
environmentally friendly for over a year to make sure our performance level did not decline,” said
John Pierce, WeatherMax product manager. “We are very pleased we were able to improve the finish
for both WeatherMax 80 and WeatherMax LT, while reducing environmental impact.”

WeatherMax 80 weighs 8 ounces per square yard (oz/yd2), and WeatherMax LT weighs 6.5 oz/yd2.
Safety Components also makes WeatherMax in an 8.5-oz/yd2 flame-resistant variety, WeatherMax FR.

According to Safety Components, WeatherMax is completely recyclable and highly breathable,
and is twice as strong and six times as tear- and abrasion-resistant as acrylic fabrics. The
company guarantees the fabric’s color retention for five years minimum.

March 29, 2011

The 2011 edition of the Denim Runway design contest — a competition launched in 2010 for apparel
design students at Lubbock, Texas-based Texas Tech University with the purpose of educating
contestants on all links of the denim supply chain — is underway. Sponsored by Lubbock-based Plains
Cotton Cooperative Association (PCCA) and Cotton Council International (CCI) — the Washington-based
export promotion arm of the National Cotton Council, Memphis, Tenn. — in collaboration with the
university’s Apparel Design and Manufacturing Department (ADM) in the College of Human Sciences,
the contest offers students a comprehensive look at the cotton industry.

“It is vitally important for consumers to know and understand where their fiber comes from
and everything involved in the entire supply chain,” said Wally Darneille, president and CEO, PCCA,
which operates the only vertically integrated denim apparel supply chain in the Western Hemisphere.

Students visited a local cotton farm during harvest in October 2010 to learn about cotton
production and environmental stewardship and also visited a cotton gin to see the first steps of
processing cotton and hear presentations about PCCA’s cotton marketing programs. In February 2011,
the students toured American Cotton Growers, PCCA’s denim mill in Littlefield, Texas, to observe
production of the denim fabric they will use in their designs for the contest. Students will return
to the mill April 7-8 to work with PCCA employees to finish their designs.

“This year, we worked with the ADM faculty to add two new categories so more students can be
involved and to give these student-designers an opportunity to see every phase of cotton production
from cotton fields to denim manufacturing,” Darneille said.

In addition to the fashion jeans competition featuring designs for men’s and women’s jeans,
the Casual category offers contestants the opportunity to design and create anything using denim
fabric, and the Cotton Trend Board category allows contestants to research trends for cotton fiber
and apparel.

Denim Runway 2011 contest winners will be announced at Texas Tech’s TECHStyle Fashion Show on
April 30. Winners in the women’s and men’s jeans category will receive an all-expense-paid trip to
Denimatrix LP, PCCA’s cutting and sewing facility in Guatemala, where they will have the
opportunity to participate in the entire process of creating high-fashion jeans; as well as an
all-expense-paid trip by CCI to the Colombiamoda apparel sourcing show in Colombia. The winner in
the Casual category will receive a $500 cash prize and a recognition plaque, and the Cotton Trend
Board winner will receive a $200 cash prize and a recognition plaque.

March 29, 2011

Charlotte-based SATO America Inc. — a manufacturer of barcode printing, labeling and electronic
product code/radio frequency identification solutions, and the North American division of
Tokyo-based SATO Corp. — has introduced GY412, an industrial-design direct thermal printer with two
print heads that print simultaneously on both sides of a coated label. According to the company,
the new printer offers improved productivity and cost savings because it removes the need for
secondary printers to print packing slips and the associated cost of additional printing supplies;
and also eliminates waste such as the label liner used with single-sided label printers.

“Typically, most companies utilize up to three printers for their picking, packing, and
shipping processes,” said Robert Linse, president, SATO America. “One printer for the pick list,
one for the packing slip, and one for their shipping label; but now with the GY412, the need for
the packing slip printer and the associated costs of paper, ink or toner, and packing slip adhesive
pouches is eliminated. This is a significant savings in real dollars as well as in labor costs as
the solution may allow process modification and reassignment of staff to more critical need
activities.”

The GY412 is suitable for applications including transportation, logistics, e-commerce
fulfillments and forms, and shipping labels, among others. The printer features a variety of
onboard linear and two-dimensional symbologies; high-speed printing up to 10 inches per second; and
interface options including USB 2.0, LAN (10/100BaseT) and RS-232C (Serial).

March 29, 2011

AmSafe Industries Inc. — a Phoenix-based provider of engineered textile products for aviation,
defense and specialty vehicle applications — has received a $4 million contract from the United
Kingdom (UK) Ministry of Defence (MOD) to supply its Tarian QuickShield rocket-propelled-grenade
(RPG) protection system.

Tarian QuickShield is based on Amsafe’s patented Tarian technology, which comprises a
lightweight modular system that replaces traditional bar or slat armor on vehicles such as
high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicles (HMMWVs) that cannot handle the weight of traditional
RPG armor. The lightweight textile net system can be used in place of damaged or missing bar armor.
According to the company, it can easily be stowed aboard the vehicle and immediately fitted to
replace damaged bar armor without disrupting a crew’s mission.

“The introduction of Tarian QuickShield into operations in Afghanistan allows vehicle crew to
rapidly repair damaged bar armor in the field, without the need for specialist tools, and will
therefore help to ensure better vehicle protection during extended missions away from bases,” said
Major Gareth East, REME, UK MOD Specialist & Logistic Vehicles Project Team.

Introduced in 2009, Tarian technology has been tested in the UK by the Defence Science and
Technology Laboratory, a division of the Ministry of Defence, and in the United States by the
Department of Defense’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), and has been shown to
withstand more than 550 live firing shots. Tarian is up to 98-percent lighter than steel bar/slat
armor and up to 94-percent lighter than aluminum bar/slat armor.

March 29, 2011