A new sports bra that counts heartbeats is causing a Christmas stir.The bra is the first consumer product to be based on an electronic interaction between a textile and its wearer.A special conductive fabric in the chest band, when it's wet, picks up the heart's electrical pulse and radios it to a digital readout wristwatch via a tiny transmitter in the bra.Such "smart fabrics" are the next big thing in so many fields that some analysts go so far as to predict that they'll change the world as dr

The textile ministry is lobbying hard for halving the excise duty on manmade fibres (MMF) to 8% in Budget 2005-06. Manmade fibres include polyester staple fibre (PSF), viscose staple fibre (VSF) and acrylic staple fibre (ASF). Most of the industry bodies like the the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham), Confederation of Indian Textile Industry (Citi) have suggested that the duty on MMF be halved to 8%. Spea

China's textile producers say developing their own clothing labels will help offset stiffer competition and higher costs for labor, energy and transportation. Chinese garment makers still lag far behind in developing their own brands of clothing, said Sheng Jingsheng, president of Romon Group, a leading textile producer in Zhejiang Province. "At Romon, for example, we top all domestic garment producers with 5 million suits exported annually but only several thousands of them were domestic b

Textile agreement between Brazil and China is on the go, confirmed Luiz Fernando Furlan, the Minister of Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade.Chinese counterpart decided to regulate part of their textile exports to Brazil till 2008, added Furlan.He added that China asked for a promise from Brazil not to apply safeguard mechanisms against other Chinese products.Though Brazil rejected this proposal, Furlarn assured Brazil would discuss with China before taking protectionist measures on other p

A host of textile companies including GTN, Prime, Premier and Super Spinning are faced with the prospect of losing crucial contracts worth about Rs 300 crore entered with Egypt? public sector shippers for import of extra long staple cotton. With global cotton prices increasing up to 25-30% in recent weeks, the Egyptian shippers have asked for increase in contract prices. Failing which, they have threatened cancellation of contracts for export of cotton to Indian buyers. Indian companies appreh

Prices for polyester staple fibers again rose today in China, a clear confirmation that polyester prices could further increase in the short term, in line with higher raw material costs. The current drop in crude oil prices could put an end to any rally in petrochemical prices, however. Polyester filament prices remained today unchanged in China while prices of polyester staple fibers further rose 30 yuan per ton, as a clear sign that demand is stronger. PSF prices were up 60 yuan from last Tu

Man-made fibre production of Brazil has been witnessing a significant slump since December 2004 as cotton started making inroads in to domestic markets capturing its market share.This collapse accelerated in the second half of 2005 as downstream demand waned due to low apparel output.This slump reached a point when man-made fiber yarn and fabric went sank by 25.1 percent, the lowest level recorded in last five years, in August, 2005.According to the IBGE Index of Man-Made Fiber, Spinning and Wea

Chinese Finance Minister Jin Renqing said Thursday China will cancel export tariffs it imposed on outbound textile products as of next year, while maintaining its flexible import tariff on cotton that falls outside the importquota. Jin, also chairman of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council, said the export tariff on textile products China imposed in early 2005 was intended to safeguard the normal order of the world's textile trade. As China reached agreements with both the Euro

The textile ministry is on an aggressive drive to promote marketing and branding of handloom and handicraft products. With the quality certification mark for handloom products, the Handloom Mark, in its final stage of preparation, the ministry is hopeful that it would launch the mark soon. According to sources in the ministry, the textiles committee has already presented the concept paper of the Handloom Mark to the textile minister and the logo has been finalised. The textiles committee will

KARACHI: Federal Minister for Textile Industries, Mushtaq Ali Cheema has said that government had abolished the sales tax from textile industry, said a press statement. Addressing in the meeting held with the Chairman APTMA and textile manufacturers, he said government was actively considering the solution of problems of textile industry as sales tax had been abolished from the textile industry which was the main demand of this sector and out of court cases had been settled. The minister sai