EXPORTS

Ana Paula Dinis, ATP Executive Director, says that the portuguese textile and clothing industry has been making a huge investment in terms of sustainability, circularity, innovation, product differentiation which is bearing fruits of this effort. This can be seen in the increase of the quality of exports.

By: Manuel Serrão

With all due respect to those people, like Ana Roncha, whom I recently heard at the Lusófona conference in Portimão ("O Ensino da moda e a ITV"), who think sustainability is a worn-out word, I write: "I don't agree". As we can see in the interview with the president of the ATP, sustainability for the textile and clothing industry continues to be of “very high importance”. Immediately explained, this importance is in this commitment by Portugal as a country that par excellence in sustainable fashion production lies one of our remarkable differentiating factors. I also fully follow Eng. Mário Jorge Machado defending that Portugal needs to invest a lot in the image of the sector as one of the places on the planet where the best quality textiles are produced most sustainably.

This desideratum is present in the answers set we publish in this edition to the question of the month. It is also in the name of the textile and clothing industry's desire to be at the forefront of the international promotion of our sustainable quality that companies spare no effort to be able to present themselves at the most relevant international fairs in ever-increasing numbers. t

Since exports will reach an all-time high, what caused this performance?

In fact, according to data available so far and ATP estimations, in 2022, Portugal exported more than 6 billion euros in textiles and clothing, the best result ever, with a growth rate of two digits compared to 2021. However, if we look at exports in volume, Portugal exported roughly the same amount as in 2021. That is, we are not exporting more products, but higher value products. This increase in the value exported is mainly influenced by the generalized rise in prices (inflation) of goods, services and increased costs of all necessary resources to produce textiles and clothing. And we are also witnessing an increase in demand of higher added value products (the general rise in production costs will reinforce this trend and Portugal will no longer be competitive in the production of less sophisticated items). The Portuguese textile and clothing industry has been making a huge investment in terms of sustainability, circularity, innovation, product differentiation and I think we can say that we are starting to receive some fruits of this effort, with a growing appreciation of “made in Portugal”.

Do you think it's possible to maintain this momentum in 2023?

The last years have been an example of how difficult it is to make forecasts, as at any time phenomena can arise to jeopardize all projections and planning.

We have seen how the disruption of supply chains can have a brutal impact on the access and price of raw materials and resources needed for production, we have seen how excessive dependence on certain elements and/ or resources (such as energy, for example) can “kill ” our business, we have seen how we are all so interdependent and exposed to phenomena that may even be geographically distant, but sometimes have serious consequences in our daily lives. There are in fact too many variables that have an impact on the business and many of them are not controlled by us and are unpredictable. Even so, and according to what we know now, it is not expected that the export growth reached in 2022 continue in 2023.

The last months of 2022 were cooling down, with negative results in terms of exported quantity, with no expectations of substantial improvement in the first quarter of 2023. We know that the decrease in the purchasing power of families has a direct relationship with the decrease in demand for this type of item. Although there are signs that inflation will be more controlled, there are still several tension variables that will continue to negatively influence demand. Only when demand recovers will we be able to restart the volume and pace of production.

On the other hand, as we have already mentioned, in part, the increase in the export value of textiles and clothing in 2022 is due to inflation; once this phenomenon is more controlled, this contribution ceases to exist.

A drop in production is worrying, especially when so many workers and families are depend on the results of this sector. t

Riopele Invests In Ai Systems For Quality Control

Committed to digitization, Riopele invested in an artificial intelligence system for quality control to streamline its fabric inspection processes. The project started in the weaving area by installing this system on 13 looms. These 13 looms are capable of detecting any imperfections in the fabrics. It is “an innovative technology that integrates an automated quality control system, based on computer vision with the respective software supported by artificial intelligence models. The software detects faults in real-time in every centimeter of the fabric”, advances the company on its official website.