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abrics are apparently now faced with the problem of where to turn next. The quality of fabrics produced in Hong Kong is improving but new machinery may be needed before further improvements can be made.
11 The finishing sector provides for bleaching, dyeing, printing and finishing. Processes include yarn texturing, multicolour roller and screen printing, transfer printing, pre-shrinking,
permanent pressing and polymerising. There is a question mark over this sector's present capacity to produce high quality materials and to meet all demands.
12 Some Hong Kong garment manufacturers are vertically structured with spinning, weaving, dyeing, finishing, making up and merchandising subsidiaries.
13 Hong Kong's own textile industry cannot produce fabrics in sufficient quantity or quality to satisfy the garment industry's requirements. As a result Hong Kong is the world's third largest importer of fabrics, trailing only the European Community and the USA. The major suppliers are China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Chinese fabrics have rapidly improved in quality, while their cost has remained low. High quality and special materials come from elsewhere, eg printed silks from Italy and stretch velvet from West Germany. In general European textiles are more expensive than Asian counterparts because of higher production and shipment costs; but greater cost may be outweighed by other factors – see paragraphs 20 and 23.
Exports of UK textile fabrics to Hong Kong
14 The textile category into which the highest UK market share has traditionally fallen is high quality wool and worsted suitings (Appendices G and H). Because of price factors this tends to mean fabrics for sale to the retail and tailoring trade. In 1979, UK imports of 'textile fabrics woven other than of cotton or mmf' (SITC 654) from Britain took 14.4 per cent of the Hong Kong market for that category with a value of HK$86 million (88 per cent of these fabrics were 'fabrics more than 84 per cent wool or fine animal hair'). However, it should be noted that the UK share fell from the 1977 level of 25.5 per cent even though the nominal value increased slightly (1977: HK$83 million). Hong Kong agents for British textiles are divided about the meaning of these statistics. Some fear that the UK share will continue to decline because of decreasing competitiveness and lack of new designs: one agent commented that he had seen no new design trends out of Yorkshire for the last three years. Agents also say that the market for these fabrics is declining. However, others pointed to the conservative nature of the tailoring market and said that lack of innovation is therefore unimportant. In the case of most other fabrics, Britain's market share has always been low, eg 1 or 2 per cent and declining.
Methods of ordering garments
15 The ordering of garments are different for mass production and designer fashions. In general, mass producers are passive. Few have a design department and, even for those that do, the bulk of business is increasingly on a sub-contracting basis producing to customer specification. Thus customers invariably provide sketches of the required garments and even samples (not necessarily from the eventual material). Manufacturers make up a prototype garment which is then discussed with the customer. After any necessary modifications a second prototype is produced, upon which the final garment order is placed. Some customers leave the choice of material to the garment manufacturer but the majority will specify, perhaps by providing cuttings. The manufacturer will seek a source for a fabric as similar as possible to the cutting. In some cases the customer will set a rough CIF price target from which the manufacturer works back; this is normally sufficient in itself to decide the source of fabrics.
16 Several manufacturers interviewed for this report stressed that it was, of course, open to the customer to decide the source of fabric, provided that he also accepted any consequentially higher costs.
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