Textiles: Bangladesh, Russia And Alabama

For six months every year – that period between farming seasons when I have a little more time to read – I subscribe to the The Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor, which I’ve taken off and on since college, always puts information in front of me that I don’t read anyplace else. It’s economic and foreign coverage are excellent. The following are brief summaries of a couple of articles the Monitor published in recent weeks, plus a link to an article that's much closer to home:

Bangladesh beats the odds. Economists predicted that the Bangladesh garment industry would partially collapse when the country lost its quota to export apparel to the U.S. Jobs would go to China, it was predicted, and one U.N study calculated that a million women – half the sewing workforce there – would lose their jobs. But since the quota disappeared in January 2005, the country’s garment industry has not been decimated by cheaper Chinese production. Wal-Mart and other major chains continue to do business with larger factories, and workers in certain instances have actually seen wages go up. (The pay scale, though, has reportedly fallen in some smaller sewing factories.) One official with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association said that the country survived the quota loss for two reasons. First, the country has a highly skilled labor pool in terms of garment production. Second, “labor in Bangladesh is cheaper than anywhere else in the world.” Clothing manufacturing accounts for all 80% of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

Russia invests in flax. Russia is attempting to revive its flax-based textile industry, which skidded badly after industrial privatization in the early 1990s. Nearly 80,000 people in the industrial city of Ivanovo lost their jobs as inefficient factories closed and a flood of cheap garments from China, Turkey and other places took away market share. With Kremlin funding, theflax industry is trying to modernize production, improve the fiber and create more desirable goods. One ongoing effort is to “cottonize” flax so that its fibers can be worked more like cotton. Jumpstarting the flax industry serves two purposes. First, this creates industrial jobs for people who, unlike displaced workers here, are not free to relocate to other regions. Second, increased demand could breath new life into the Ivanovo area’s declining ag sector. Russians have a long history with the northern-grown fiber, and it’s been worn by both peasants and czars. Two U.S. chains – Bloomingdales and William-Sonoma– have ordered flax linens from the 135-year-old Yakovlev textile mill. The furniture/lifestyle giant Ikea recently ordered Russian linens.

Alabama's High Fasion: The following article (which should be available for the next five days) appeared today on the paper's web site. See: "Fashion's new sweet home -- Project Alabama is one of a raft of clothing designers finding success far from the coasts."