Malaysia was conspicuously missing at the just-concluded four-day HEIMTEXTIL Fair in Frankfurt.
HEIMTEXTIL is the world's largest trade fair for the home-textile industry and Malaysia's competitors,including a number of ASEAN countries, were present.
In a business environment that faces all kinds of pressures arising from the economic crisis, the initial knee-jerk reaction of many companies, is to cut costs and weigh carefully if any money spent is justifiable or otherwise.
"But it is precisely in a crisis situation that companies have to strengthen their marketing efforts. They need to position themselves to take advantage of the post-crisis period when demand will pick up and revert to a business-as-usual situation.
"Malaysia's textile industry can take a leaf from the strategy of other countries which document their presence in international markets and use shows such as the HEIMTEXTIL as marketing tools," says Armin Gruenewald, a German textile business consultant with vast experience in Asia.
Malaysia's textile industry, is often written off by locals themselves as a "sunset industry", due to the migration of textile producers to low-cost production sites in the neighbourhood such as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia or even Bangladesh.
It may also be losing steam in the face of fierce competition from not just countries such as China and Vietnam, but other high-cost producing countries such as Singapore,Taiwan, Korea and Japan.
These countries have survived the onslaught of cheap supplies by resorting to innovation, improved designs, colours and, equally important, enhanced customer-friendly services to lure customers.
This is particularly directed at those willing to pay more for quality and service and thus beat the competition from low-end, low-cost suppliers.
"Yes, the answer to beating the competition from low-end suppliers is to improve quality, designs and colours, supported by better customer service. Indeed,innovation is the key to the survival of the textile industry," says Detlef Braun, the managing director of Messe Frankfurt GmbH, the organiser of HEIMTEXTIL, in an interview with Bernama at the Frankfurt fair.
By relocating to other countries, Malaysia's textile industry is moving out lock, stock and barrel. As many Asian and German experts are saying, "an industry that once moves out, does not usually return to its home country".
This would be a permanent loss of revenue for Malaysia, not to mention jobs and other opportunities for the local population.
The HEIMTEXTIL was dominated by Asians. India had a huge contingent of 385 exhibitors.The number even exceeded the 381 exhibitors representing host country, Germany. China had 380 exhibitors, Pakistan 193, Taiwan 44 and Korea 30.
Other ASEAN countries demonstrated their presence at the show with Singapore having 18 exhibitors and Vietnam 13 while Thailand and Indonesia had four each.
Even Bangladesh had 21 exhibitors.
"So, I am wondering why Malaysia is not here to take advantage of this fair which is veritably the best meeting place between buyers and sellers from around the world. After all, other Asian countries, including the high-cost economy Singapore, are all here," commented Gruenewald.
Meanwhile, the Frankfurt office of MATRADE has just released the latest figures on two-way trade between Malaysia and the 27-member strong, European Union (EU).
Malaysia's total trade with the EU declined by 21.1 per cent in the first eleven months of 2009 to RM 99.82 billion, compared to the previous year's RM 126.46 billion.
The decline is attributed to the global economic downturn that also hit Malaysia''s exports to the EU.
Within the EU, Germany remained the largest trading partner for Malaysia, accounting for a 30.2 per cent share of the total trade, followed by the Netherlands (19.6 per cent), the UK (11.9 per cent), France (11.1 per cent) and Italy (6.6 per cent).
Malaysia's main exports to the EU included electronic and electric products, palm oil, rubber products, chemicals and chemical products, optical, scientific equipment, plastic products, wooden furniture and processed foods.
