Archive for October 31st, 2008
Livemint, India
Karva Chauth is a big day for North India and the suited staff in the Dior store at Emporio Mall, Delhi’s latest luxury address , are busier than usual.
Interestingly, male customers outnumber women at the store; they’re choosing between the Dior 61 and Lady Dior lines of bags- gifts for their devoted partners, while some women hover around the Le Plisse Dior line.
Bags are obviously popular, though a walk around the elegant 3,500 sq foot anchor store reveals some quick purchases of eyewear and footwear as well. The most animated area of activity though is where John Galliano’s famed artistry has lured two of Dior’s loyal ladies to its corner . Half an hour of some perfect fits later, a purple chiffon gown and red dress from the fall winter prêt-a-porter collection are wrapped and ready.
“The high-end customers are developing very fast in emerging markets and if you do not position yourself in response to this consumer you will lose big retail. A luxury brand cannot have a middle image in India and a top image in New York; the image has to be top globally.
The consumer will not accept two positions,†says Sidney Toledano, president and chief operating officer of the Euro 12.5 bn Dior Group. It is a strategy which has worked in various new markets, says the handsome 57-year-old President as he reels off examples from Russia to China.
It is definitely a busy day at the Emporio store Toledano is visiting, but the COO, seemingly unperturbed, chooses to speak at a decibel level drowned by the activity around him. He is dressed in a fitted, steel grey, thin pinstripe suit with a white shirt and black tie, a restrained but natty ensemble that suits his near sixfoot frame well.
Toledano may head a fashion house whose silhouettes have been applauded at ramps across Paris, Milan and New York and whose legacy boasts of legends like Yves Saint Laurent and Gianfranco Ferre, but his sense of dressing, he says, come from his parents. “I’ve loved fashion since my engineering days, though I was not a dandy. I wanted clothes which expressed something. Maybe because of my Mediterranean origins I love the outdoors, going to places and meeting people and dressing well is part of the seduction process,†says Toledano.
October 31st, 2008
African Press Agency, Senegal
APA-Kigali (Rwanda) A UK-based textile industrialist, Raj Loomba of the Linku industrial group, Thursday said his group intends to invest over US$100 million in a textile industry in Rwanda.
He said the move will not only boost the country’s industrial out-put but also economic growth in the region.
Speaking on a discussion panel during the on-going East African International Commonwealth Business Forum, Raj said that Rwanda needs not just a plant but a well developed textile industry given position in the region and Africa.
He said the experience he has with China since 1987, there is no doubt Rwanda too can develop at the same rate in a few years given her development oriented leadership.
Raj said the one hundred million dollars would be used in importing industrial machinery, hiring skilled labour both in installation and textile work among others.
“For twenty years I have been in China, seeing the country growing from scrape, I am sure Rwanda too can make it in few years,” Raj said.
He however noted his potential threats as poor infrastructure, lack of skilled labour, lack of raw materials among others but said with government facilitation such huddles can be overcome.
The mayor of Kigali City Dr Aisa Kirabo Kacyira assured the prospective investor all the needed support asking him to closely work with the government to carry out the feasibility study for the project.
October 31st, 2008
Business Standard, India
Komal Amit Gera / New Delhi/ Chandigarh
The revision of minimum support price (MSP) of cotton has affected not only the textile mills, the ginning mills in Punjab are also in a soup. About a dozen ginning mills in Abohar and Malot in the cotton-growing belt of Punjab have been shut down due to an unviable business situation.
According to Rajinder Garg of the Chirag cotton factory, which has its units in Fazilka, Giddarbah and Malot, most of the unit mills have stopped functioning because they cannot lift the raw cotton at Rs 2,800 per quintal (the MSP for Punjab).
He added the ginners paid the highest tax of 12.5 per cent in Punjab (2 per cent infrastructure tax, 4 per cent market fees and rural development fund, 2 per cent laccha hartiya commission and 4 per cent VAT) as compared to about 7 per cent in other states.
“Due to the unreasonable cost of inputs and high tax structure, we sell cotton to the spinning units at Rs 24,000 per 37.32 kg, where as they get the same from other states at Rs 22,000 per 37.32 kg,” he said. The leading textile houses in Ludhiana and Lalru are buying from other states due to the price difference.
Garg has three units with a cumulative capacity of about 50,000 bales per annum, as the family has been in this business for generations. “We do not have any other skills, so we want to continue at the minimum margins also,” he said.
He leased his Fazilka unit to the Cotton Corporation of India at Rs 490 per bale this year as the business for him became unviable.
The plight of other ginning mills in the state is similar.
Pankaj Sharda of Sharda Cotton Mill, which technically falls in the Sirsa district of Haryana, said the mill was dependent on cotton from Punjab. He had set up a new fully automated unit with an investment of Rs 4 crore recently, but is now doubtful of making optimum utilisation of his assets, due to the high cotton prices.
Sharda is also contemplating handing over his unit to the government agencies to cover his minimum costs.The association of ginning mills, the North India Cotton Association, has not been able to fight for their cause, Rajender Garg.
October 31st, 2008