Panelists at the three-day event questioned the direction the U.S. and Chinese governments have taken regarding global and domestic economic issues. David Dodwell, CEO of Strategic Access Ltd., specializing in government relations and public policy analysis, said: “There is a lot more pain out there to come,”

The Labor Department reported recently that the unemployment rate in March held steady at 9.7 percent and payrolls climbed by 162,000. With this negative indicator, the Governments need to rebalance their own budgets by raising tax. The issue is how they come up with this without inflicting major problems on the rest of the world.

As China needs to spend more and trade less for the health of its own economy and the world’s, this has yet to happen and China has gained more market export share during the financial crisis.

Meanwhile, as the demand in the U.S. and EU seems to have peaked. India needs to generate demand in Asian markets and countries in the East need to drum up demand within their own countries. Exports in India fell by 7 percent in 2009. 

The shifting geopolitical landscape and the rise of major emerging markets are generating social and political anxiety in developed countries, leading to increased trade tension.

Janet Fox, vice president director of sourcing at J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and chairwoman of the U.S. Association of Importers of Textiles & Apparel, said: “In the opinion of the retailer, consumers get good value [from China],”

“Pushing manufacturing into the U.S. will only increase prices for Middle America. Consumers are not yet ready to pay higher prices. The U.S. textile lobby is also trying to reinstate textile monitoring in China and Vietnam. To be honest, I’m not sure what the U.S. is trying to protect, at least when it comes to apparel,” Fox added.

Meanwhile, Willy Lin, chairman of the Textile Council of Hong Kong, said that the governments need to stop imposing regulations and instead act as facilitators to support policies that will help sustain growth.

Environmental factors were also a hot topic but that it is difficult to employ environmental regulations with no costs. To solve this problem, the European Commission and Council must avoid putting extra monetary burdens on textile industries at a time when increased global competitiveness is the key to survival.

When it came to innovation, the focal point was on how best to employ new technologies and strategies to create a more efficient supply chain to meet the demands of the industry’s shift toward “fast-fashion” business models.

Stanley Szeto, chairman and ceo of Lever Style Inc., emphasized that while technology is most often used as a tool to shorten manufacturing time, the industry must now begin to look at what can be done to streamline processes on the entire supply chain, most specifically on the development side.

“We have a small retail client that tells us what styles they want more of after weekend sales,” Szeto said. “So they place an order with us on Monday and we ship it out on Friday. They pay a premium for this service, but it is more profitable for them as it eliminates dead inventory.”

As the concept of speed-to-market is becoming the new norm, Robert McKee, industry strategy director at Lawson Software Inc., said the future may now be gearing toward “time to consumer.” He cited Threadless.com as an example of a successful integration between social networking and e-commerce.