Ready Made Garments: a Case Study on Export Performance

The relevance of this book can be measured by its ability to speak to the everyday individual, who may or may not know anything about economics, and plant the seed toward global economic education. It provides a keen social awareness to people who may or may not ordinarily care about international economics and can have an eye-opening effect toward what really happens in the textile industry.

Aussie textiles are a medium sized organization which produces quality garments located at Queensland. As there was a huge competition for imported goods at a cheaper price, the organization had decided to establish a manufacturing plant and import goods from one of the three countries namely Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam. This report will be focusing on how Vietnam could be a potential country for setting up an entirely new manufacturing plant to produce quality textiles and export back to Queensland. Further adding on to the report, it attempts to analyze the pros and cons, followed by the industry overview and analysis. In the next paragraphs, the market for the textile industry will be analyzed using the industry data. In addition to this, tools such as porter five forces model will be used to analyzing the potential as a host market for manufacturing. And finally the recommendation declaring if the market in Vietnam is feasible for manufacturing or not.

Esquel, one of the leading cotton-shirt-manufacturers in the world came from China and it supplies lots of clothing brand such as Banana Republic, Tommy Hilfiger, Hugo Boss, Brooks Brothers, Abercrombie and Fitch, Nike, Nordstrom and Lands’ End, in addition to private companies (Plunkett Research, Ltd.). However, due to the high demand of the US apparel stores for Chinese products, the low cost, which was the main reason why raw materials are being purchased from China, have increased. China’s competition is huge, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Sri Lanka also producing material at cheap prices (Plunkett Research, Ltd.). The US apparel stores can instead purchase from these other Asian countries. It is hard to determine the exact number of suppliers in this industry; but, in general, majority of them are in Asian countries that can provide low-cost raw materials to US-based apparel stores. Therefore, the US apparel stores may acquire higher net profi

The fashion industry is certainly not for the faint of heart. It is an industry full of ups and down. And it is one that is quite labor-intensive. Fashionable apparel begins as the aesthetic brainchild of a designer (or team of designers). And as the item(s) gain life, each works its way through the many facets of the manufacturing process.

Firstly, fashion design thinking is a framework for making products aesthetically attractive by adopting new innovative approaches. But I was intrigued by seeing the disparity between conceptual fashion design thinking of designers and its industrial production viability. Questions like what type of fabric is best for what type of printing process and which process is more cost-effective with less limitation, are still some burning issues in the fashion world. Many times fashion designers demand very critical development like reactive printing on polyester-cotton blend fabric or discharge printing on double part dyed cotton-polyester fabric. But unfortunately, considering current technological aspects in Bangladeshi industrial sector,

The textile industry has undergone enormous change in the past ten years. Global trade in textiles was once regulated by high tariffs and a complex system of import quotes. Not anymore. Textiles used to be produced predominantly in the U.S., Europe and Japan. Not anymore. Textile mills used to dictate fashion, everything from fabric construction to fiber content. Not anymore.

* We are doing this report so that we can analysis the readymade garment (RMG) sector of Bangladesh and find out the problems and remedies of this sector.

This paper will examine the role of the United States in textile and apparel production in the age of globalization and will provide an overview of trade agreements enacted in the textile and apparel industry. A discussion of the different trade agreements and how the U.S. textile and apparel industry has been affected by those agreements will be given along with ideas about what the United States can do to continue to operate in the domestic market of textiles and apparel.

The problem African textile manufacturers have, is that they are fighting an uphill battle against costs. As manufactures must pay for the materials, the facilities, the equipment, power and personnel, international dealers pay for the bales of clothing and all the associated shipping costs. For example, 300 bales of second hand clothing are sold for $40k in the African market (Hoskins,2013). A bale consists of 200 to 250 pieces of clothing on average (Rogali). The bales are stripped down and the clothing is

2. Richard M. Johns (2006). The Apparel Industry. 2nd ed. UK, London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.. 1-124.

Many people in The United States do not specifically know how their clothing is being made and what the living conditions are like for the people who make them. Blood, sweat, sacrifice, and tears have gone into the production of garments in Bangladesh and Hannan Majid and Richard York show it through the film they produced The Machinists. The three factory workers featured in the documentary are Mohammed and his wife, Nargis who lives with her parents and two sisters who also work in the factory, and Ratna a single woman involved in a union to help workers understand their rights. Also being analyzed are The Rana Plaza Garment Factory deaths caused by the collapse of the poorly constructed building in Dhaka shown in the documentary Fashion Victims produced by ABC Australia. It is very easy to look at the garment industry from an outside perspective and attempt to conjure up an effective solution. However, are U.S. consumers willing to give up designer clothing for a virtuous conscience? Can U.S. consumers strip the elephant in the room of its designer clothing and address the underlying problems of Exploitation of Garment Factory Workers in Bangladesh by Multi-National Corporations? We will be analyzing the garment workers starring in this documentary and what are the social reasons why U.S. consumers

Apparel industry in Sri Lanka has become one of the most important contributors to Sri Lanka’s GDP. In fact, the industry has grown enormously well during the past 3 decades bring opportunities for locals, internationals, and organizations. Moreover, Sri Lanka apparel industry has definitely helped the country’s development in numerous ways.

Rivalry among existing competitors: The apparel industry is highly competitive with a great number of both local and global competitors. As the market is mature, its growth is small. Accelerated growth and expansion to new markets are not easy goals to achieve. The barrier to get out of the industry is quite low for distributors, but high for producers. Most fashion manufacturers moved their production base to low-cost countries like China as wage and raw materials in developed markets like Western Europe are high. Besides, there is no great discrepancy in terms of quality of products, so customers make their purchase choices based on price and brand recognition.

According to the data, the total volume of textiles exported from China has started a continuous rapid growth since 2001 (the year of China’s accession to the WTO) as shown in the first graph above, which roughly

Faruqui, M. (2014, July). Nobody can beat Bangladesh in price and quality. Retrieved from http://www.textiletoday.com.bd/magazine/873