Search Results for: Sri Lankan

Battle lines have been drawn across the international palm oil industry as its companies prepare to comply with the incoming European Union (EU) food information regulation No 1169/2011, which comes into force from December 13, 2014, and requires product labels to list types of vegetable oil used in food.…

While many companies may be looking for strategies to exit China as its as labour and manufacturing costs rise, that is certainly not the case for John Cheh, vice chairman and CEO of Hong Kong-based quality cotton shirt manufacturer Esquel Group.…

While small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan’s knitwear sector have significant manufacturing capacity, they have yet to harness their full potential, according to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Pakistan exported USD2.3 billion’s worth of knitwear in 2011 says the Trade Development Authority of Pakistan, and many producers are small.…

THE SRI Lanka knitwear industry Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) has been pushing the island’s government for reforms to help the sector continue its current growth. Tuli Cooray, secretary general of the Sri Lanka Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF) told Knitting International: “Last year from our total exports, the knitwear amounted to almost 47 per cent, a sharp increase from a share of 34 per cent in 2002.…

THE MALDIVES may best be known a tropical paradise with rare beauty, but this south Asian archipelago is also a hotbed for terror financing and money laundering, analysts fear. The country is now attempting to strengthen weak anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) laws that have created a “magnet effect for foreign organisations to pour money into local extremist groups,” warned Jean-Charles Brisard, US based terrorism financing expert and former chief investigator for the 9/11 families’ lawsuits against Al Qaeda financiers.…

WHETHER improved transparency in clothing supply chains will be enough to guarantee a sustainable future for outsourcers in south Asia remains to be seen, but a conference staged in Sri Lanka last week (Oct 10) heard plenty of calls for improved openness.…

AN INTERNATIONAL clothing and textile conference has heard how the growing retail market in the Asia-Pacific region may enable emerging economies such as Sri Lanka to realise ambitious dreams to become regional production hubs.

Kurt Cavano – founder/vice chairman & chief strategy officer of cloud computing company GT Nexus addressing the South Asian Apparel Leadership Forum, held in Colombo on October 12, noted: “The top six retailers that are growing are not in North America, it is in the Asia Pacific.…

THE MUCH publicised talks to strike a south-south free trade agreement (FTA) between the world’s largest clothing and textile exporter, China, and upcoming niche outsourcer Sri Lanka is sparking intense debate about its potential impact.

While the secretary-general of Sri Lanka’s Joint Apparel Association Forum (JAAF), Tuli Cooray, is upbeat about the proposed agreement, senior economists Dr Saman Kelegama and Dr Harsha de Silva have urged caution.…

THE SRI Lankan government wants to borrow an additional USD150 million from the Export-Import Bank of China to fund rising costs for building the new Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. China’s official Xinhua news agency and Sri Lanka newspapers reported that the money would fund unexpectedly high construction bills for the airport, which opened this March (2013).…

Sri Lanka’s garment industry is targeting higher-end Chinese consumers, with total apparel exports to China growing twenty-fold – from USD0.7 million in 2010 to USD15 million in 2012, according to the country’s Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka. (JAAF)

In China, a new market has emerged for top quality local brands, the JAAF said in a statement, adding: “The high level of GDP [gross domestic product] growth and rising per capita income has widened the middle class there.”…