The ripples of globalization, trade liberalization and the quota-free era seem to reshape our new textile economy and weave a promising global social fabric. How we integrate to the new textile economy from low-cost competitions to changing markets with extreme economic inequality is a challenging opportunity to ensure the stability, prosperity and security of our future.

With abundance of cheap workforce and high quality jute fibre, Bangladesh's Textiles and Clothing (T&C) sector, accounting for 76% of the total export earnings, offers competitive growth potential in the free-for-all mall. Bangladesh has only 2.6% of global market share and aims to increase its export volume to US$ 10 billion in the near future. As an LDC origin, Bangladeshi T&C products enjoy duty free access to Canada, Australia, Japan and Norway.

Economics of Exploitations
The global textile and Clothing (T&C) trade is estimated at approximately US $1 billion a day. Our passion for fashion is woven in Bangladesh at less than US $0.25 hourly wage, in Canada at US$13.59, in the US at US $15.13, and in Switzerland at US $24.12. Bangladesh offers the cheapest workforce with unique growth potential. Asia, led by China and India, has the largest textile economy and workforce. Low-cost competitions and a natural phenomenon that a product will find a profitable place are expanding developing countries' textile industries exponentially.

Eco-friendly Textiles
The growing environmental concerns seem to reinforce our choice for eco-friendly process-product-technology and diversify natural and synthetic fibres. The advancement in science and technology, especially biotechnology, has led to sophisticated natural organic fibres with superior properties, high yields, and design value-

Table 1. Raw cotton: actual & projected production/mill consumption & export/import

	Actual Average per Year 000 tons				Projected 000 ton		Growth Rates % per Year
	1989-1991		1999-2001		2010		1989-91 to 1999-01		1999-01 to 2010
	Prod	Cons	Prod	Cons	Prod	Cons	Prod	Cons	Prod	Cons
World	19 030	18 629	19 901	19 824	23 095	23 107	0.4	0.6	1.5	1.5
Developing	12 382	12 516	13 099	15 619	16 160	18 930	0.6	2.2	2.1	1.9
Developed	6 648	6 406	6 803	4 316	6 935	4 177	0.2	-3.9	0.2	-0.3
	Exports	Imports	Exports	Imports	Exports	Imports	Exports	Imports	Exports	Imports
World	5 686	5 719	6 049	6 007	6 530	6 646	0.6	0.5	0.8	1.0
Developing	2 284	2 940	1 961	4 131	2 108	4 743	-1.5	3.5	0.7	1.4
Developed	3 189	2 800	4 066	1 876	4 422	1 903	2.5	-3.9	0.8	0.1

Source: ICAC Bulletin (CD-ROM) June 2002. Compilation: TTS.

Table 1 compares global cotton production, mill consumption, exports and imports scenario from 1989 and forecast to 2010 with average growth rate per year. China, US and India are the top three cotton producers. The mixing, blending (e.g. Jutton) and hybrid configurations (e.g. unidirectional epoxy impregnated composites) of natural and synthetic fibres will enhance performance-properties interrelationships. We foresee more environmental friendly natural fibres (e.g. Jute, Flax, Coir, Banana fibres), natural dyestuffs and chemicals to colour our passion for fashion.

The Power of Innovations
Imagine a wide variety of naturally coloured cotton produced like today's yellow watermelon to skip expensive dyeing and finishing processes. Think what a cost-effective gain it would be to design eco-friendly process-product-technology with biocompatible, biostable and biodegradable fibres. A Canadian biotechnology company envisioned spinning recombinant spider silk fibre, BioSteel and invented a micro-spinning technology that could spin fine micro-suture filaments from as little as 20 L spin solution. The results showed promise and demanded further research to examine polymer consistency, cost-effectiveness and commercial reality.

Trends and Tendencies
Developing countries export more clothing than textiles, as clothing is relatively more labour-intensive to produce and labour is comparatively abundant domestically. Conversely, these countries import more textiles than clothing as textiles are relatively capital-intensive and capital is relatively scarce domestically. Industrialized countries export more of this capital-intensive textile than they do apparel, and import more of this labour-intensive clothing than they do textiles. Facing the future, they are turning to technically advanced textiles.

Global average per capita fibre consumption is approximately 10 kg per annum. Global fibre production hit 67 million metric tons in 2004. DRA estimates that the consumption of technical textiles around the world will be 23 million tons per annum by 2010. Mobiltech, Indutech and Sporttech will capture 55-57% of the technical textiles market share. T&C sectors will continue to lose market shares to offshore low-cost suppliers. Developing countries will increase their market shares unless extreme global inequality and unfair free-trade pacts are eradicated. Only then could a promising global textile economy be woven.

Canada imported 60% of textiles and 62% of clothing in 2004, while Canada-made textile and apparel satisfied 70% of the domestic demand in 1989. Facing this reality, Canada will launch a new program, the Transformative Technologies Program, which will share Canadian industries' costs of innovation and technology adoption projects. Its goal is to ensure that leading-edge industrial research continues to grow and that Canadian companies are competitive in the global economy.

Demands and Dynamics
Technically advanced textile sectors seem to grow immensely as our quest for a better quality of life continues. The labour-intensive T&C sectors count on continual capital investment, upgrading knowledge and technology to further innovations, productivity and competitiveness. Investment, training, innovations and continual improvement visions are crucial to create a competitive niche market and high performance work environment.

Fast-paced globalization and trade liberalization have forced labour intensive textile industries to knit cross-cultural business for exploiting global market potential. The textile fibre industries will continue to shift, incrementally, to the cheap labour-intensive developing areas of Asia, Africa/Middle East and Latin America, from the advanced countries, in order to capitalize on competitive cost advantages.

Innovations proliferate at every phase of the textile supply chain, from upstream fibre production to final products. The primary market drivers of change are: innovation in fiber performance, comfort, aesthetic characteristics and smart functional textiles. Next-generation high-tech artificial fibres will continue to provide cost-effective solutions to specialized applications.

Technical/industrial textiles represent a significant portion of the total textile activity in North America. It accounted for 30% of end-use fibre consumption in the region (around 3.5 million metric tons) and was worth $17 billion in 2000. Because of the industry's strong growth and demanding technical requirements, many segments offer long-term market potential.

Enhancing performance, customer satisfaction and quality baselines continually are instrumental to staying competitive and innovative. Integrating interdisciplinary innovations will advance multifunctional textile process-product-technology design. Total solution strategies, service & technology systems, and continual learning attitudes are crucial to develop cross-cultural business and long-term partnerships in the new textile economy.

Dr. Shafiul Islam, CText FTI, is the President, the Institute of Textile Science (textilescience.ca), and a consultant of TexTek Solutions (textek.bravehost.com). Reach him at textek@gmail.com.