Some Clothes Love You Back™ Leading fibre producer INVISTA has introduced a new global campaign for its flagship LYCRA®' fibre brand, entitled "Some Clothes Love You Back™”. The launch of this exciting new campaign marks the culmination of a year long process for INVISTA and London based advertising agency, Fallon. A single trade and consumer campaign has been developed to build on the unique understanding the LYCRA® brand fibre has of how consumers want their clothes to move, look and feel. The "Some Clothes Love You Back™” campaign follows previous successful LYCRA® fibre brand activities including "LYCRA® Sensations" in 1990, "Nothing Moves Like LYCRA®" in 1996, "Enjoy the Difference" in 2000 and "Has It" in 2002. The new campaign builds on consumer insights collated by THINKTANK Research, which demonstrated the consumer understanding of LYCRA® fibre as a trusted brand with a strong emotional connection to consumers that has led to its preference by more than 60% of consumers polled over plain "stretch" options and recognised by 90% of consumers globally. The campaign also demonstrates that LYCRA® fibre remains a fibre of choice among leading names within the fashion and textile industry. Zac Posen, denim brands True Religion and JBrand and lingerie icons La Perla and Chantelle, are all featured in the initial images for the ‘Some Clothes Love You Back' campaign. The twelve signature images feature a range of LYCRA® fibre innovations in Intimate Apparel, Swimwear, Legwear, Sweaters, Denim, Dresses and Active Wear. LYCRA® fibre is unique and continues to differentiate itself from all other fibres through ongoing innovation. Recent developments include, XFIT LYCRA® fabric, LYCRA® Black fibre and Xtra Life LYCRA® fibre. INVISTA Global Brand and Communications Director, Bruce Rowley said, "The campaign we developed is built on the LYCRA® fibre brand's unique understanding of how women are shaped, how they move and how they want.         2008 is ‘Make Or Break’ for Doha Trade Talks With fears growing of a global economic recession, trade leaders urged businesses to press their governments to seek a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of trade talks in 2008, or risk seeing a rise in new barriers to international commerce. “If it’s not concluded this year, it won’t be concluded next year - and by 2010 the caravans will have moved on elsewhere,” Peter Mandelson, Commissioner, Trade, European Commission, Brussels, told participants at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2008. He added, “Not only will the caravans have moved on in different directions of trade negotiations, but what has already been on the table, which in my view is quite substantial, will have been put into deep freeze.” After more than six years of stop-start negotiations, the Doha talks between members of the World Trade Organization have ground to a halt. With less than a year before US President George Bush leaves office, time is rapidly running out for reaching an agreement to reduce tariffs, subsidies and promote freer and fairer trade, panellists said. The plenary session “Threats to the Global Trading System” followed an informal lunch meeting of trade ministers in Davos. Despite important progress on technical issues over the past six months, panellists revealed, the group remains no closer to an agreement and scepticism is high. Concerns persist among developing countries that lower tariffs will unfairly expose poor rural farmers to global competition and jeopardize growth that would be a potential buffer against a global slowdown. “The content of this Round must deliver to healthy economies in Asia, in Africa, in the Pacific and in Latin America because that’s the goose that’s laying the golden egg,” said Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry of India. But the cost of failure is rising, panellists said. Failure in the Doha Round would be likely to increase protectionist pressures around the world and result in a rollback from the progress already made towards freer global trade. Mandelson said the negotiations had become a prisoner to some extent of the American political calendar. Campaigning is already underway for elections to replace Bush next January, and a new president is unlikely to be able to put the Doha Round at the front of the US policy agenda, he said. The new president is likely to want to review any commitments that have already been made.         German Company to Begin Operations in Pakistan The chief executive officer of DF Deutsche Forfait AG Pakistan (Pvt) Limited, Salman Mamoon Ahmad confirmed that his organisation had decided to tap the virgin Pakistani market by introducing export finance services. These services, utilised the world over since the last century, have not been available to the market in Pakistan till now, and would be based on forfeiting that would reduce significantly the risks faced by small and medium sized exporters, particularly. This service is also expected to help enhance overall exports of Pakistan by a billion dollars in the first 3 years. The services of DFAG will be of greater and more significant value in exports to new, emerging and difficult markets for Pakistani exports. DF Deutsche Forfait AG Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd is already registered with the SECP and should commence operations imminently. In discussion with TDAP, as facilitators, represented by Sajjad Haider Malick, Executive Director Export Finance Services, Mamoon indicated that the offices of DF Deutsche Forfait AG Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd, as a subsidiary of DF Deutsche Forfait AG, Cologne Germany would be located in Lahore and would manage the national export finance needs. The office, will in effect, act as a Representative Office for marketing and customer services in Pakistan for their global operations based in Cologne, Germany. Mamoon said, "We are grateful to TDAP for all the encouragement and facilitation provided in the numerous interactions by Tariq Ikram, the Chief Executive of TDAP and his team since the very first meeting held with our Vice Chairman, Shezad Rokerya, way back in early 2006 which primarily assisted and encouraged our coming to Pakistan". Ulrich Wipperman, the Chairman of DF Deutsche Forfait AG Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd, when contacted, further that he foresee a great potential for business in Pakistan with its robust and sustained economic growth over the last six years coupled with the continued national effort of creating increase in exports of merchandise and services.         DECLINE IN COTTON PRODUCTION IN 2007 The textile sector is the backbone of our country’s economy, contributing 60 percent of our exports, 46 percent of total manufacturing and 38 percent to employment. The availability of cheap labor and basic cotton as raw material for textile industry has played the principal role in the growth of the cotton textile industry in Pakistan. Cotton production was at 11 million bales in 2007 as compared to 13.02 million bales in 2006, a decline of 2.02 million bales in a year. The performance of the textile industry during the last 5 years has been satisfactory but in the current year increase in cotton prices have been reported. Weather problems and high financial charges pose a threat to the textile industry. Increase in competition from the neighbor countries can also create challenges for the textile industry. The unit value can only be increased to produce value added quality. The value addition requires up gradation in resource development both in manufacturing and marketing. Also, the focus should be on R&D development, technical innovation and product development with the goal of moving up in the global textile value chain.         COTTON PRICES ON THE RISE Manufacturers are facing the toughest time of their life, since the beginning of this year. Cotton prices are still showing an upward trend, according to Karachi Cotton Association (KCA), rates of cotton have demonstrated a further growing tendency. Cotton prices, stood at Rs. 3,150 per mound, however, for the past few days manufacturers must have taken a sigh of relief when the cotton prices got stuck at Rs. 3,200 per mound. Such fluctuations are creating confusion in the market and taking its toll on the manufacturers. The unstable trend in the international markets seems to be affecting the domestic scenario as well.         PRGMEA ELECTS CHAIRMAN FOR 2008 The leading exporter Mr. Bilal Mulla of M/s Mulla International has been elected unopposed Chairman of Pakistan’s Readymade Garments Manufacturers & Exporters Association (PRGMEA) for 2008. According to the results announced by the Election Commission other office bearers elected unopposed include Mr. Shehzad Salim of M/S Master Textile Mills as Chairman of PRGMEA Sindh and Balochistan Zone. The ZMC members elected were Mr. Bilal Mulla, Mr. Javed Chinoy, Mr. Amir Amin, Mr. Sheikh Mohammad Shafiq and Mr. Javed Suleman. Members elected for the CMC were Mr. Bilal Mulla, Mr. Javed Chinoy, and Mr. Abdul Wahid Bandukda.         Power Shortages Affects the Textile Industry The textile industry of Pakistan has been suffering tremendous loss because of high cost of production, low cotton production and many other factors. To add to the dilemma, the recurrent power cuts in the country have worsened the situation. Most of the Pakistan's weaving sector is dominated by small powerloom weavers which are largely dependent on an uninterrupted power supply for their production. On the contrary, the interior Sindh including Hyderabad, Sukkur, Mirpurkhas, Jacobabad, Kashmore, Kandhkot, Shikarpur witness day and night load shedding. Hence all the textile mills will have to remain shut for over five hours every day until the completion of two weeks because of frequent power cuts. Sources from the industry believe that this problem has been aggravated after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on December 27, 2007. Besides, experts consider that the 7 percent GDP target aimed for this year may not be achieved because of such disturbing working conditions.Further, country's rate of growth may even get impeded because of the impact of high global oil prices and domestic political turmoil.         Qatari Armed Forces Gear up in Xfit Army Uniforms The Qatari Armed Forces redeveloping their uniforms portfolio. Project research is being carried out by the Center for Research in Design at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar and the software solutions ANTHROSCAN and XFIT ARMY by Human Solutions are being used during the project. Serial measurements of 3,200 military personnel has been carried out before the test of the uniform prototypes takes place and 3D body scanners were used to take these measurements. ANTHROSCAN by Human Solutions will then be used to evaluate the data. Size & fit optimization and allocation of uniform sizes will be carried out by XFIT ARMY. Realistic base data for the fitting of the uniforms is especially relevant, since 80 % of the population in Qatar comes from abroad (e.g., India, Pakistan, Iran or other Arabian and African countries). This is why a wide range of uniform sizes & fits is necessary. The project will last approximately 2.5 years, from the first uniform design to final manufacture of all the uniforms. A major part of project time is taken up in design and production. The measurement, evaluation and optimization procedures are carried out by solutions from Human Solutions and are planned to continue through the implementation phase. XFIT ARMY will also be used later for garment logistics and optimization of the warehousing processes. ANTHROSCAN uses raw serial measurement data to create comprehensive and flexible base data for the evaluation of body dimension data. This base data is also available for later measurement procedures. XFIT ARMY helps with the allocation of garment sizes and their latter-stage fitting. Uniform sizes can then be made "on demand" - sizes that are actually needed. Stocks, and consequently logistics and warehousing costs, are thus considerably reduced.       15.04.2008 MEGATEX Pakistan 2008 International Machinery Exhibition of Garments & Textile Technology, 15-18 April 2008. Venue: Karachi Expo Centre, Karachi, Pakistan. 15.04.2008 INDEX 08 Leading Nonwovens Exhibition, 15-18 April 2008. Venue: Geneva Palexpo, Switzerland. View All Events

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