China Plans To Impose Export Duties On Textiles

In an apparent effort to head off mandatory unilateral import quotas and other trade sanctions, the
Chinese government has announced plans to levy an export tax on its shipments of textiles and
apparel to the United States and other countries. The government did not specify the amount of the
duties, which will take effect after January I, when virtually all import quotas on textiles and
apparel are due to expire. The action reflects China’s concern over the U.S. government’s use of
safeguard mechanism to impose new quotas or take anti-dumping ard countertervailing duty actions.
The announcement was viewed with skepticism by textile interests in Washington. They do not believe
the duties would be large enough to offset what they say is a 30 to 40 percent price advantage
China enjoys over other nations. They say it might just be a ploy to discourage use of the
safeguard mechanism against Chinese imports, which disrupt or threaten to disrupt the US market.
The interagency Committee for the Implemention of Textile Agreements currently is evaluating
safeguard petitions seeking new quotas on bras, dressing gowns and robes, trousers, shirts,
underwear and other products. Domestic textile interests have filed the petitions because they fear
China will have free reign to take over more and more markets in a quota-free world. Importers, on
the other hand, are strongly opposed to the use of the safeguard mechanism as they see it as an
illegal and counterproductive effort to reimpose quotas that limit their flexibility in sourcing
products.

December 2004

Interface Recognized For Green Initiatives

At the recent National Green Power Marketing Conference in Albany, N.Y., the US Environmental
Protection Agency, US Department of Energy and Center for Resource Solutions presented
Atlanta-based carpet and upholstery fabrics manufacturer Interface Inc. and its Interface Fabrics
and Bentley Prince Street companies with a Green Power Leadership Award. The award recognizes
Interface’s purchases of renewable energy credits (RECs) equivalent to 8,807 megawatt hours of
power. Bentley Prince Streets commercial carpet facility in City of Industry, Calif., generates 100
percent of its electricity using RECs and other green sources. Interface Fabrics uses Green-e
certified wind RECs to produce 1 million linear yards of Terratex® upholstery and panel fabrics per
year. Interface Flooring Systems also uses wind RECs to power its operations.

Interface Inc.’s Atlanta showroom opened in Spring 2004.

In other news, Interfaces showroom in Atlanta has received the first Platinum Award for the
US Green Building Councils Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design for Commercial Interiors
(LEED-CI) Pilot Program. The showroom meets or exceeds LEED-CI criteria for site selection, water
and energy efficiency, atmosphere, construction waste diversion from landfills, furniture and
fixture reuse, and indoor environmental quality.

December 2004

AAPN Makes Connections


P
 rofessional organizations have a history of being significant sources for influencing
purchase decisions. They also can provide information and insight that helps build and grow a
business. One organization that has a focus on business networking and a stated policy of avoiding
political agendas is the Atlanta-based American Apparel Producers’ Network (AAPN).

Managing Director Mike Todaro is a perennial source of information and marketing ideas. A
recent interview with Todaro highlighted marketing as it relates to textiles, associations and the
apparel supply chain.


TW:
 Your background is not typical of an association executive. How does it affect AAPN’s
approach?

Todaro: As a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel with a background in
telecommunications and computers, and having had a civilian career with IBM focused on sales and
marketing, coming to AAPN and working with Sue C. Strickland, our executive director, has let us
approach AAPN from a different perspective. AAPN is focused on networking our members in every
possible way, whether it be through our Web presence, our meetings, our support at trade shows,
trade visits to different parts of the world, summits in El Salvador or our daily e-mail
communications that create a community for our members.




TW
 : How does AAPN serve a marketing function?

Todaro: One of my favorite stories happened when I first joined AAPN. I visited an
apparel contractor, really, what then was known as a cutter, and I asked him, “How do you market
your company?” His response was, “Market, what do I have to market? I’m just a contractor.” And for
me, that said a lot.


TW
 : How did it change things for you?

Todaro: At IBM, there were similar challenges. I remember trying to help a
software company boost sales. They had a product that had gone flat. I went to the meeting dressed
in IBM suit and tie, and they were laid back in Friday mode. I asked about marketing, and they said
that this was a sales problem. I stepped back. I had just finished a Marine Corps marathon that
weekend and was still beat. I said, “Sales and marketing are just like a marathon. When the sale
gets made it is like that day you are running the race — the crowd is cheering, all of those miles
go by, you are engaged in the moment and you cross the finish line.

“Marketing, on the other hand, is all of those early morning runs the crowd never saw. It’s
the training, the disciplined program, the running a full marathon on a Saturday and being dead
tired the rest of the weekend.” That is the commitment you need to do marketing, but, you know, it
gets you to the finish line — it gets you to the sale.


TW
 : How has AAPN changed through the years?

Todaro: We reflect the industry, sometimes even foreshadow it, for good or bad. We
lost a lot of US apparel companies as they were affected by NAFTA [North American Free Trade
Agreement]. We added members in Central and South America, and with more and more members having an
international footprint, we have members around the world. We also have broadened to include all
members of the apparel supply chain and the technology suppliers that make that happen.


TW
 : What marketing tools does AAPN provide?

Todaro: I suppose the most basic is the networked community of members. We keep
that active on a daily basis with e-mail, and networking is what we do. We don’t take a commission,
we simply help people do business and find what they need.

The summit in El Salvador and our annual meeting are focused on getting industry leaders out
in front, getting our members heard, and helping network solutions with them.

The AAPN Journal that [Textile Industries Media Group] publishes for us is a way for AAPN to
establish a record of those needs and ideas, get it out there to an even broader community, and
give our members an opportunity to market directly.

Our presence at trade shows is done in a way that allows members to have the option of being
with us in a organized presence at a show. At Material World, we do additional events like a
Sourcing Managers Forum. Last year, we had more than 50 sourcing managers meeting with us to give
us their perspectives. We also held a reception with more than 300 members and guests, all focused
on networking within the apparel supply chain. We just visited Guatemala and Taiwan, and next year
we are taking members to mainland China.




TW
 : How is your association supported?

Todaro: Our primary revenue stream is dues. Every member pays the same amount.
There are other modest sources of cash, but we keep an open book to our board and spend everything
on promoting the network. You can compare us to any other apparel supply chain organization in the
world — we are certain we have the lowest overhead costs and highest apparel industry staff skills,
and are the best value in the world.




TW
 : What do you see as the biggest marketing challenges for your members?

Todaro: The main challenge is for them to accept that they have to market, have to
differentiate, have to rise above the noise. Marketing is hard. Most think it is expensive. But the
cost of not marketing is going up faster than whatever it costs. Advertising, manning a booth at
Material World, maintaining a gorgeous website, accumulating and publishing testimonials, getting
face time with sourcing executives, networking at AAPN meetings — it’s all marketing; it’s all a
form of a sales call. The old saying is it takes six calls to sell something — most give up after
three in our industry. Contractors in the old days didn’t even make sales calls.


TW
 : For a small to mid-sized company, what is your advice to developing a marketing initiative?
Todaro: At the risk of being self-promoting — join AAPN; and the real call is to
come to meetings. It is amazing what you learn. It is fascinating to see who an elastic producer
knows, where a patch maker has just been, why a shipping company knows so many senior executives,
how a hang tag company is powerful to retailers, and when a technology executive has been involved
in key industry strategy sessions. Meetings are where you learn who the customers are, what their
problems are and how you can solve them uniquely. Small companies and mid-sized companies need to
think big. AAPN gives them a way to meet big players face to face.




TW
 : What new opportunities will AAPN provide in the future?

Todaro: AAPN has been on a countdown to doom three or four times in the past 10
years, and we always thought of something that gave us a future. I suspect it will be in the
networking area — the ultimate collaborative communications system each of our members could use
out of the box. Also, we’re very committed to this hemisphere’s industry. We’re trying to organize
it industrially so it has a real competitive advantage other than just proximity to the United
States.


What Is AAPN?


Sue C. Strickland, executive director, AAPN, sees it this way: “Since inheriting this
association from the founder, Don Strickland, in Atlanta in 1990, AAPN has grown through a number
of chapters divided into pre- and post-NAFTA, pre- and post-Internet, and pre- and post-Caribbean
Basin Trade Partnership Act. Now, we are in pre-2005. Soon it will be post-2005. And AAPN will not
only still be standing, but growing.

“Meaning matters in this and any other industry association. How we affect our members’
businesses determines if we mean value to each of them. Are we sending our members work? Are we
helping them stay in business? Are we helping them to make money? The network works to answer these
questions every day.”

“[Each] day, up to 3,000 businesses either visit our website, phone us or send us an e-mail,”
Strickland said. “This is traffic that has taken us 22 years to build and every member who joins
jumps into this stream equal to all other members in every way.

“At our own meetings, at Material World and other trade events, we network. In fact, one
board member said we invented the word ‘network’ in this industry, and maybe we did.

“Since 1994, every member has been shown on-line free of charge and in
still-industry-exclusive, accurate detail. This hard work continues, now taking us into 28 nations
around a world where the sun literally never sets on our membership,” Strickland added.

For more information about AAPN, contact (404) 843-3171; fax (413) 702-3226;
sue@aapnetwork.net;
www.aapnetwork.net.

December 2004

A Mixed Bag


S
 pinners described their business outlook as a mixed bag, and expressed some uncertainty
about the effect of January’s quota phase-out.

“It’s tough to tell what will happen in the next few months with the barriers coming down on
imports in January 2005,” said an open-end (OE) spinner.

“I do think the spinners that are left should take a closer look at their pricing procedures.
It seems like we are competing more with ourselves than with imports.”

A specialty ring spinner said business has picked up recently. “We are optimistic that we
will have strong business opportunities in the first quarter, like last year,” he said.


Finishing Out 2004

Spinners are easing into the expected holiday wind-down. “We’ll gain a little bit of inventory
going into Thanksgiving and Christmas, which is not a terrible thing because our inventory has been
extremely low,” said a ring spinner.

“We will run through Thanksgiving and take five days off for Christmas. Most of our major
customers are running through Thanksgiving,” he said.

He noted his company is seeing a fair amount of weaving business, which he finds encouraging.

One OE spinner said, “Running conditions are pretty good right now. Of course, going into
December, generally things slack off a bit. Pricing is not where we want it to be.”

Yarn prices have dipped as spinners had to pass falling cotton fiber prices on to their
customers.

“We’ve pretty much given back the decrease in cotton prices,” said another spinner. “I know
that we, as well as other spinners, are probably not going to really get into [consuming] 40-cent
[per pound] cotton until probably January.”


China Safeguards

Spinners’ assessments of the value of recent China safeguard petitions were mixed. “We have been
talking to the government really hard for the last five or 10 years,” said an OE spinner. “They
have meetings with you and say they feel your pain, and then they go back to Washington and do what
they’ve been doing. I’d be amazed if [the China safeguards] have the effect we would all like to
see.”

Another spinner was upbeat about the National Council of Textile Organizations’ unifying
effect on the industry.

“I am very optimistic that we have a unified voice for the industry, speaking out and working
diligently to have a positive impact on trade legislation for our industry,” he said.

“It’s encouraging that they are trying,” added a ring spinner. “I don’t know if it will
necessarily help. I don’t know how the whole thing will shake out. We haven’t seen a lot of orders
for the first quarter, so we are a bit concerned.” He also noted yarn orders have become much more
last-minute, which may be a mitigating circumstance.

A specialty spinner had what was probably the most pragmatic view. “We need to file as many
[China safeguard petitions] as we possibly can,” he said. “We are still very concerned about 2005.
Our export business is a highlight. It is doing well, although we have seen it drop off a bit in
the last couple of months. We wonder if retailers are slacking off on their orders in the Caribbean
Basin Initiative region in anticipation of what they are going to bring in from China.”


Record Cotton Yields Expected

In its November crop report, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) forecast US cotton
production at 22.5 million 480-pound bales, up 5 percent from October and up 23 percent from last
year’s production. Yield is expected to average a record-high 818 pounds per harvested acre, up 36
pounds from last month. If realized, the yield will be 88 pounds above the previous record-high
yield, established in 2003.

Record-high yields are expected in Arkansas, California, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico,
North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas. Harvested area, at 13.2 million acres, is unchanged
from October, but 10 percent above 2003.

According to the USDA, total classings through early November were approximately 8.6 million
running bales. Nationally, 90.7 percent of the crop graded 41 or better, an increase from the
five-year average of 84.2 percent. All regions show an increase in color grades over their
five-year averages. The national average staple length thus far is 35.3, up slightly from the
five-year average of 34.6.


December 2004

Will They Be A Better Us Than We Are?


S
 tep back a minute and think about China. Not about trade law and currency issues, or how
your business is being challenged — rather, what’s your take on the big picture?

China’s economy shares all the hallmarks of a young athlete — the discipline from a good
coach and the direction gained from strict authority. The economy is growing by leaps and bounds,
devouring monumental foreign direct investments, and building, building, building.

Textile World staff, on a recent trip to Beijing, noticed an editorial in China Daily
regarding air pollution. The piece cited one cause of the problem as the 4,300 or so open
construction sites in the city. Members of the group who had been in Beijing just two years earlier
were amazed by the changes.

In China, there is an overarching sense of national focus regarding all phases of
development and policy, which must be good for China first — an arguably necessary approach for a
country undergoing not just change, but complete transformation. There appears to be an awkwardly
effective mix of the Wild Wild West of capitalism, tempered by real authoritarian control and the
pressing stewardship of 1.3 billion people. But, it is at the beginning — so much so that China’s
story can’t yet be told.

Don’t take it lightly — during a conversation with an Italian machinery builder, he pointed
out there are cities in China undergoing incredible development, building the necessary
infrastructure to support modern society — cities that you may have never even heard of with 30
million people — equivalent to nearly half the population of Italy!

And on balance, the United States seems foolish. In China’s eyes, you need to look no
further than the lack of a long-term US-first policy. Instead, US policies encourage imported
products without regard for a strong domestic industrial policy. The US economy is more akin to a
middle-aged male facing a mid-life crisis.

As the United States focuses on relinquishing all domestic manufacturing of scale, and
grasps at developing a “new” economy, you have to wonder about the future. Is it too alarmist to
think US economic sovereignty is dead? Import oil, import manufactured goods, import services if
you can, and buy cheap. Consume rather than save, deserve rather than earn, think short-term profit
— until, like oil prices, everything changes. Then what? The Chinese aren’t debating building new
bridges — they are building new cities.

As it becomes easier to do business in China, as transportation and logistics improve, as
basic infrastructure such as power systems come on-line — the horizon is not yet visible for this
scope of economic development — and global political power.

So the question is: Will they be a better us than we are? As multinationals fixate on
transferring technology for short-term gains, as enhanced globalism becomes the mantra of US trade
policy and China harnesses the commitment, control and power of 1.3 billion people — What’s your
bet?

December 2004

American Natural, Melatex Agree To Enter Into MOU

Charlotte-based Melatex Inc., a formulator of dyestuffs for the textile industry; and American
Natural Bio-Solvents LLC, Jasper, Ga., a manufacturer and formulator of environmentally friendly
chemicals for the textile and urethane foam industries, have agreed to enter into a memorandum of
understanding (MOU). The companies jointly will produce, market and sell new chemical processes to
industrial sectors in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States; and introduce new chemical
techniques and processes to industries that use chemicals and dyes.

December 2004

Electromatic Offers Checkline® LS Linear Strobe

Electromatic Equipment Co. Inc., Cedarhurst, N.Y., has introduced the Checkline® LS Series of
high-intensity xenon linear stroboscopes, which it says is suitable for visual inspection of
labels, textile fabrics, nonwovens and other web-type products.

Electromatic Equipment’s Checkline® LS Series linear stroboscope

The strobes feature a highly polished reflector, a rugged steel enclosure designed to
dissipate heat, and flash frequency ranging from 0 to 6,000 flashes per minute. Synchronization of
flash frequency to web speed may be accomplished automatically using an external sensor or manually
using a precision adjustment knob. Flash intensity also is adjustable manually or
automatically.Available in 10-inch and 15-inch models, the strobes inspect webs up to 36 inches
wide. Units may be combined to accommodate wider webs.

December 2004

Küsters To Deliver Finishing Ranges To China In 2005

Eduard Kusters Maschinenfabrik GmbH & Co. KG, Germany, has received an order for three
finishing ranges from Chinese Sunvim Hometextiles Ltd., China. The ranges will be delivered and set
up early in 2005. Included in the order are a TurboFlush washing machine; and a FlexNip continuous
bleaching range, a mercerizing range and a pad-steam dyeing range.

The machines accommodate fabric widths of up to 3,200 millimeters and weights between 180 and
200 grams per square meter; and run at speeds of 60 to 80 meters per minute.

December 2004

Crowley Opens Distribution Center In Guatemala

Jacksonville, Fla.-based third-party logistics provider Crowley Logistics Apparel Transportation
subsidiary has opened a 13,000-square-foot distribution center inside the El Naranjo Free Zone in
Guatemala. The center provides shipment consolidation/deconsolidation, inventory control, storage,
and local and regional distribution services; and supplements warehouse and distribution services
offered by Crowley Logistics de Guatemala at facilities in Guatemala City.

Crowley Logistics also operates distribution centers in South Florida, El Salvador and
Honduras. The company says the new center will facilitate movement of shipments to garment makers
that operate in the duty-free areas. John Hourihan, senior vice president and general manager,
logistics, said the company also will be able to consolidate shipments of finished product from the
free zones to the United States.

December 2004

Rieter E 65, E 75 Combers Offer Increased Output

Switzerland-based Rieter Spun Yarn Systems reports its new E 65 and E 75 (ROBOlap) combers are the
first to achieve a nip rate of 450 per minute and daily output exceeding 1,500 kilograms of combed
sliver per machine, thus providing a 13-percent increase in production over the earlier E 62 and E
72 models, as well as lower operating costs. Rieter has optimized combing process parameters via
upgraded Computer Aided Process Development (CAPD+) simulations, and claims the new combers achieve
up to 96-percent machine efficiencies and higher raw material utilization.

The new models feature the Ri-Q-Top top comb and new Primacomb 8014 and 8015 circular combs,
which provide a high self-cleaning effect and reduce maintenance by up to 75 percent, according to
Rieter.

December 2004

1...2,4132,4142,415...2,625Page 2,414 of 2,625

Sponsors

Breaking News

Load more

Digital Issue

2026 Quarterly Issue Number I

View Latest Digital Issue

FEATURED ARTICLES

© Copyright 2017 Textile Industries Media Group, LLC.