Italian Views of Silk Situation
Mr. Stefano Vitali
president of Italian Silk Office, director of Fratelli Vitali di Roberto SpA
Ladies and Gentleman,
good morning to you all.
1. I am glad to welcome the attendants of this enlarged chairman meeting of International Silk Union, coming from several countries of Europe and Asia. We have been very honored to receive the invitation of the leaders of International Silk Union, who wanted to promote this annual meeting in Como, and here we are again, one year later, to share information, opinions, proposals about our beloved fiber.
My name is Stefano Vitali. I am the Director of “Fratelli Vitali di Roberto SpA” a weaving mill which is located not far from Como. We produce jacquard and plain woven fabrics, we are a link in the textile chain which is concentrated in the surroundings of Como and which is the hub of the silk industry in Europe, as you well know. An important number of mills, very highly specialized in each aspect of the activities which add value to silk, from twisting to finishing. Since last year I have the honour to be the new President of Ufficio Italiano Seta.
I am taking the floor as representative of the Italian silk industry and I wish to thank the Chinese organizer of this event, because they give us the possibility to exchange our views and expertise in silk developments. As usual, first of all, I shall provide you with some information regarding the situation of silk activity in Italy. Secondly, I shall introduce some points which could help our fiber to perform better, not only in Italy, but all over the world, because silk plays its game in a very international scenario.
2. We already declared several times, in the past, how important for Italian silk industry is foreign trade, 75% of our turnover is made abroad. In 2017 the value of Italian exports of silk products reached 840 million Euro, that means 3,9% less than in 2016. The main market was France, almost 140 million Euro, especially for luxury products.United States, Middle East and Germany were suffering, Switzerland and United Kingdom improved a little bit. China reached 62 million Euro, a little bit less than 2016. Sales of garments, which boosted so much the previous year, had a small decrease.
Our exports regard mainly silk fabrics, in 2017 it was 190 million Euro, reducing by 9.1%. On the contrary silk dresses reached almost 198 million Euro, 3% more. Silk shirts and blouses amounted to almost 148 million Euro, 2.6% less. Silk ties decreased to 128 million Euro, 10% less. Silk scarves were stable, almost 128 million Euro.
3. Generally speaking, if we look at values, it seems Italian silk industry is keeping its levels. But if we consider quantities, 2017 recorded again important losses, as it already happened the year before.
Italian garment makers have been able to increase their sales of very expensive silk made ups all over the world, but silk consumption in the textile chain in Italy is suffering. In 2017 Italian consumption of silk yarns in weaving was 15% less than 2 years before. The production of Italian fabrics, comprising Italian finishing of foreign loomstate or boiled off, decreased almost 14%, during the same period. Also last year part of the substantial reduction in silk mill consumption has been recorded because of the continuous decline of tie business. But even in garments making we have seen an ever increasing shift from silk to other continuous filament fibers.
Raw silk quotations, at the end of 2017, were 30% higher than 12 months before. European importers have made their efforts, in order to reduce the impact of rising prices of raw silk, but rising quotations have damaged the confidence of the textile chain toward this fiber. Garment makers pretend to receive stable prices from their suppliers, at least for the length of one single season. Converters have been led to move from such a risky fiber and to propose blends or fibers different from silk.
The level of silk quotations is not a problem itself, at least in developed markets of Europe or USA Turbulence is the real problem. Turbulence is the best way to jeopardize the consumption of the silk and this is exactly what is happening. Luxury products are still made of silk, but the medium range market has gone away.
4. A second point I am going to consider in my speech is QUALITY. As we have always pointed out, it is a milestone for keeping silk in the luxury market, but it is fundamental also for each market segment. Without quality there is no future for silk!
Quality requests by European high-end garment companies are setting the bar higher and higher. For an efficient industrial process and in order to fulfil the increasing expectations of final users quality demands, it is fundamental to define more and more reliable control of the defects. During these latest years, cooperation among technicians in Europe and in Asia has been fundamental. For this reason we have been able to establish I.S.O. standard of electronic test method. We are interested in promoting the application of this method in the silk pipeline. We may go on keeping our traditional cooperation with Chinese experts and we may pursue additional improvements which technology may obtain. But electronic control of the quality of silk must be exploited in the perspective of making silk more and more reliable for silk users, for garment makers and for final consumers, according to their real expectations.
5. Quality control is important, but we emphasize the necessity of promoting quality itself especially at the beginning of the long silk chain. Silk is a natural fiber and, as it happens for each natural item, quality achievements depend on several factors. Quality achievements are not obvious at all, you must reach them every time. We are aware, and you surely know in much better detail, that Chinese cocoons production focuses on yield per mu rather than productivity of labour, as silk worms are fed by picked leaves. You well know that, since several decades, there are alternative methods which sacrifice somewhat production per mu and enhance greatly labour productivity, giving some advantage even in terms of cocoons quality.
Due to the very high cocoons price increase in 2017 and rising of raw silk quotations, we are aware that several trials are carried out this year in China with the above mentioned traditional but more labour saving method and even much more advanced systems projected to the future. So we do not worry about cocoons availability, as we are sure that you will adopt the proper corrected measures by and by. However high cocoons price immediately reflect in silk quality, just because the difference of value between first and second class cocoons becomes enormous - and the temptation for a less severe selection appeals to the reeling mills. Active demand and high prices immediately result in deterioration of raw silk quality.
6. Additional obstacles to proper raw silk quality refer to the fact that the automatic machines, a very old project designed with cheap materials available at the time, have been produced in China without any improvement to the used materials, need a lot of maintenance and are becoming old but not obsolete because no significant progress in the new currently offered sets are detected.
Labour scarsity at the reeling mills often prevent timely maintenance and more over resulted in fewer reeling girls per line of machine. When you combine complete cocoon selection and scarsity of direct workers you obtain production with a lot of knots, a lot of short cohesion defects, because the girls have no time to remove them and a lot of medium to long cohesion defects caused by worn parts or improper maintenance.
In fact Chinese reeling mills are doing rather well in such a situation, if you consider that in North Korea and in Uzbekistan the adoption of the Chinese automatic reeling machines has resulted in a dramatic loss of quality. Clearly the Chinese reeling technicians are very good experts. What we can’t understand is why raw silk quality standards cannot classify good quality, medium quality and extremely poor quality corrected.
Italy has sincerely cooperated with China in the promotion of the electronic testing machine adopted as I.S.O standard; however we didn’t see enough will to implement the instrument seriously and to use it for a proper classification. For us, electronic testing is a way to provide reliable classification of the silk lots, with proper recommendation for each individual textile industry use. Some Italian suppliers of silk materials are effectively exploiting electronic testing in this perspective. We point out, again, that the industry may cope with higher prices, but it cannot survive improper quality classification and the lack of availability of good silk quality. For this reason, we are not interested in supporting classification standard which will not consider the expectation of the users of silk.
During these latest years, we obtained substantial improvements because we agreed upon the basic guidelines of the standards we were going to promote internationally. In the future we shall not change our approach. Just because we are sincere good friends of China and of the Chinese silk industry, we emphasize that we shall proceed in cooperation with you only on the basis of common commitments for reliable quality standards.
Improper quality classification is met with more or less effective practical steps by the European throwsters up to now but in the long run might result deadly for both of us.
7. This is the final message that I want to introduce to this assembly. Today several countries are represented in this meeting. There are probably different expectations, different ways to look at the problems of silk, different opinions on the possible solutions. It is important to meet, to speak, to listen to points of view that maybe are very different but this is the importance of this international organization. Today economic trends are faster and faster and need to be tackled with timely and concrete measures. In our opinion it is urgent to defend silk and silk players with some very precise policies.
China was the birthplace of silk and even today it is by far the dominant country in the world. We Italians may give suggestions, on the basis of our experience. But China is the leading country for silk and it is up mainly to Chinese players to promote concrete steps which may help silk to shine as the queen of fibers even in the future.
I thank you for your attention.
