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THE MALAYSIAN government has approved a new minimum wage of Malaysian Ringgit MYR1,500 (USD368) for the private sector, but the new wages floor will be phased in gradually.

“If we push for higher minimum wages, cost of production will go up and we will not be competitive,” Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad told the country’s national news agency, Bernama, today.…

Japan’s personal care sector experienced continued growth in 2017, with shipments surpassing Japanese Yen JPY1.6 trillion (USD14.34 billion) during the year to record a new record high. Virtually every sector recording an increase in sales on the previous year. Figures for the January-April period of 2018 suggest that this positivity is being carried over into this year, boding well for Japanese personal care product companies.…

ENDING UP an entrepreneur was perhaps Arif Al Islam’s “Plan B”, but the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA)-qualified financial professional has more than proved his business smarts.

“I had to build the company from a scratch,” says Mr Islam, who is now managing director and chief executive officer of Dhaka-based fibre optics major Summit Communications Ltd.…

EUROPEAN Union (EU) customs’ long-standing struggle with counterfeit textile products coming from south-east Asia and the resulting economic losses have sparked the EU to invest in two initiatives aiming at preventing the trade of fake goods. 

IP Key South East Asia (IP Key SEA) and ASEAN Regional Integration Support from the EU (ARISE Plus), both launched this April, will be strongly promoting the protection of intellectual and industrial property rights in the textile and other impacted sector.…

THE ASIA-PACIFIC (APAC) region’s oil and gas sector faces an unprecedented level of decommissioning for which it is under-prepared and lacks experience, analysts have warned. Unclear regional government regulations coupled with a lack of local expertise mean that companies and regulators face a steep learning curve, high initial costs and the potential for mistakes, according to the consultancy group Wood Mackenzie’s latest analysis.…

THE ASIA-Pacific region has many of the elements needed to create a burgeoning nonwovens market and industry. It has growing middle class consumption of basis personal products and continued manufacturing and infrastructural expansion for industrial nonwovens. These items can be supplied my new mass-production in emerging market countries and niche lines from the region’s richer developed industrial economies.…

JAPANESE eateries are expanding in Indonesia as the appetite for beef rises among south-east Asia’s most populous country’s growing middle class.

In 2016, Indonesia’s beef consumption was 1.84 kg per capita (its population is 261 million), up from 1.45 kg a decade earlier, according to business researcher Statista.…

SOUTH-EAST Asia maybe a diverse and hence complicated region in which to market personal care products, but the growth in sales in all its countries make it an attractive target for beauty brands.

The Philippines is a case in point. The gross domestic product (GDP) of this 103 million people archipelago recorded 6.7% GDP growth in 2017, and the World Bank projects it to grow further at an annual rate of 6.7% in both 2018 and 2019, before settling at 6.6% in 2020.…

THE NEWLY signed 11-member Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) could help Vietnam boost garment and textile exports to the lucrative Australian market significantly. But the Asian clothing makers may still face big challenges in taking market share in this mature market away from China, experts warn. …

INDONESIAN President Joko Widodo’s drive to upgrade the country’s infrastructure is set to benefit the textile industry, but the problem of high energy costs remains an obstacle to competitiveness, industry players have warned.

Since taking office in October 2014, Widodo’s administration has embarked on ambitious projects to tackle infrastructure bottlenecks by building roads, ports, airports and power plants.…