The ICA announced it had signed a deal with Supima in June 2024 while at the American Cotton Shippers Association (ACSA) Convention in Arizona, US.
The UK-headquartered trade association said the MOU would “help foster greater cooperation between the ICA and Supima and enable us to work more closely on a number of shared goals”.
The two organisations’ shared goals include:
- promoting sanctity of contract
- training and visit programmes
- information exchange and dissemination
- diplomatic initiative
- testing and quality issues.
ICA President, Kim Hanna, said in a statement; “I am really pleased that we can add Supima to the ICA’s growing list of alliances. Along with our existing MOUs, this latest addition will strengthen the relationships between organisations through increased communication and collaboration, which will ultimately help make trading safer.”
The ICA already has existing MOUs with organisations including Better Cotton, China Cotton Association, Aid by Trade Foundation with its initiative Cotton Made in Africa (CmiA), The US Cotton Protocol Trust and others.
Both Supima and the ICA have previously announced plans to work on the blockchain platform TextileGenesis.
In October 2024, TextileGenesis signed an MOU with the ICA, aiming to increase digital collaboration and promote ethical trade and sustainability within the fashion and textile industry.
At the time, TextileGenesis' founder and CEO Amit Gautam said: “The ICA is the world’s leading international cotton trade association and deeply involved across the value chain in settling trade arbitrations, providing them unparalleled insights into companies that don’t fulfil their arbitration commitment."
In 2022, Supima announced a strategic partnership with TextileGenesis to establish a new industry benchmark platform for cotton authentication.
