It tells how ‘New World’ promotes the visit of Peruvian entrepreneurs to the largest textile fair in America.
How is the Peruvian textile industry doing since the covid-19 pandemic?
Different years with different stories, one very far from the other, because 2020 had a first nine months of total closure, as you know, and then had a timid reaction towards the end of the year, precisely because many countries were completely stopped in terms of the production of their industries. And because consumption began in different countries, it was basically food and clothing that accommodated a different, sedentary, quarantine lifestyle and meant that there was a very large demand for the textile industry in all parts of the world. world. The demand was much more than the supply, and that is precisely why all the logistical problems that were experienced in 2021, which was a year of great sales for all industries, with the exception of some such as tourism, which were greatly affected, and demand and supply worldwide were very very distant from each other, and this was seen a little until the year 2022, but increasingly slowing down, all manufacturing costs for all industries rose.
There is talk of a window for Peru to take advantage of the global demand for Denim clothing, tell us about it…
The opportunity is throughout the continent, because, first, the only factories on the Pacific coast that produce Denim are a subsidiary of Vicuña of Brazil, which is in Ecuador, Nuevo Mundo and San Jacinto, which also produces denim, but of a more basic quality. So, countries like Colombia have no where to supply Denim fabric, as they had before, because their main factory closed. There is also a geopolitical race in the world where the two great powers are trying to realign with their trading partners, and that is the United States and China. So, the American continent is playing much more with the continent itself, and there is the ‘nearshoring’ movement, which is very popular. In addition, there is the movement promoted by the United States, called ‘America for the Americans’, which seeks to get the countries of America to work with the continent. We are even seeing it here, how China is settling into this part of the continent, and taking resources such as energy.
In this context that you describe to me, Nuevo Mundo is taking 20 local brands to ‘Colombia Moda 2024’, how important is this event?
Colombia Moda is the most important fair in America for offering the complete package, that is, finished knitted and flat-woven garments. But, because Peru is not an important exporter of flat fabric, in any case if we want to talk about jeans specifically, and basically it is because many of the brands that make an excellent product do not have an export culture, so they do not know why Where to start on that part. Afterwards, they would also not know how to get to Colombia Moda since taking a stand that is not cheap, they would not know if they have to prepare a collection. So, what Nuevo Mundo has done here is tell the brands: “look, don’t worry about the export itself, we are going to support you in the export process. Don’t worry about how you get to the event, we will take care of taking a stand. We are going to have these 20 brands that have been part of a selection process, where 100 brands started. We will not only carry very big brands, like Topi Top or Modas Diversas, we are also carrying small brands, like Balboni, or Y-Jeans, a little bit of everything. They were basically selected not because of their size, but because of the creativity they have, because of the interest in being able to go out and show their products. Nuevo Mundo is taking care of making it free for the brands, but it has been a process that we started in September of last year, and in February we finished choosing the 20 brands that are going to go in the month of July. Now, why is this opportunity so great, nowadays there is a lot of talk about ‘fast fashion’, where one does not have the visibility that one had before, where you could place an order to Asia, six months before and then they would send you the garments. Today the fashion situation is very changing, that is why it is called fast fashion. On the other hand, climate changes in the world are also playing their own game, where perhaps you prepared to make dark jeans because a winter is coming and then on the continent there is a very warm climate, so, not having much visibility it is It is important that countries that want to buy finished garments, be it the United States, be it Colombia, be it Chile, be it Mexico, can work with suppliers that are very close to them and can react quickly.
What was the experience of selecting these 20 brands, and what is the difference in the proposal that will be brought to Colombia?
The reason why the Peruvian proposal is so powerful is because we have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the United States, Colombia and Ecuador, and we have production capacity that is not used here in the country and we can react very quickly, so That is an extremely big advantage. You cannot make it with Tanguis cotton or pima cotton, you have to make it with cotton with a shorter strand and we, in the case of Nuevo Mundo, work everything with American cotton, whose icon is the little cotton ball that is very well known. Cotton USA. Therefore, the garments that will be made here to export to the American market will be: “Made in Peru with Cotton USA.” We would be the only country that would be exporting garments made in Peru with American cotton to the American market, being able to respond quickly, for the reasons that I tell you and because we also have two very large commercial partners that have a lot of presence in the American market such as Lycra and Arcrhoma. , are two giants that work directly with brands that operate in the American market. So, there is the great opportunity we have. Colombia and Mexico were the main suppliers of Denim garments to the United States and the continent, therefore, since Colombia is not there, then there would be an opportunity for Peru to take those orders that are not being attended to.
It is known that the production of knitted fabric is much higher than that of flat fabric (Denim), how much production do you estimate can be achieved in the first year, if you meet the demand you are talking about?
The post-pandemic years were atypical, one very different from the other, I don’t think any of them will ever be repeated in any of their forms. The last normal year was 2019, when Peru exported 160 million knitwear items to the world and that same year Peru exported 375,000 jean items. So, if the best-selling garment in the world is a jean, why did Peru only export that? The answer is, one, due to the lack of export culture that the knitting industry does have. To have an idea, Nuevo Mundo, our factory, can make two million linear meters of Denim per month, if we transfer it to garments, those are more or less around 1,400,000 garments. That means that we can make between 16 and 17 million garments, if 160 million knitted garments were exported, we can export, if we wanted to tomorrow, we could produce 10% of what the knitting market exported. knitted.
And is it profitable to produce Denim?
Let’s see, if you only want to produce denim to sell in the local market, I would tell you that it is not very profitable because the main competitor of Peruvian fabric is the fabric that basically comes from Asia, and not only is it imported at very low, dumping is generally done, you will have seen the marches of the people of Gamarra asking for safeguards to be put in place, but no government has done so. Therefore, we said, if we want to continue seeing the same old results where the flat knitting industry is shrinking, then let’s do nothing. If we want to reverse this situation, we have to look towards exports. Peru is a world leader in mining, fishing, and agribusiness with asparagus, blueberries, grapes, avocados, etc. But we are also leaders in knitting exports. So what is the fact here? That every industry that exports is a leading industry in our country, and Peru is a country known for its fabrics, its textiles, it is an ancient country in textiles, but we have not developed the flat weaving part, which is so large. like knitting, but that our country, while it is always growing in the knitting industry, is decreasing in the flat knitting industry. So, it is not profitable with the labor rigidity that exists, with the conditions under which we work, because we have the supervisory bodies every day. There is something, when I went with all this to PROMPERÚ, I told them about the opportunities there were and asked them for the State to support at least the dissemination of what we are doing, and they never called us again.
