Textile And Garment Exports Will Grow 9.6% Against The Trend In 2020!

Counter trend growth 9.6%! According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs, in 2020, China's textile and clothing exports totaled US $29.122 billion, a good result of 9.6% year-on-year growth.

This transcript is hard won and quite eye-catching.

With the support of the policy of "stabilizing foreign trade", China's textile and clothing industry has withstood the huge impact of the epidemic. The textile industry has grown for nine consecutive months since April, and the clothing industry has reversed since August. The export of textile and clothing has increased for five consecutive months, directly driving the overall export of national trade in goods by 1 percentage point, which has become an important driving force for the growth of national trade in goods.

The steady release of export competitiveness benefits from the continuous improvement of consumption demand in overseas markets. However, the return of orders, more importantly, the huge "magnetic attraction" formed by the stable industrial chain supply chain system of the domestic textile industry, also reflects the industrial practice of China's textile industry in deep adjustment and improvement of development quality from one side.

In 2020, facing the challenge of epidemic situation, how about the overall operation of China's textile and clothing industry? As an important industry to improve people's livelihood, how can the textile and clothing industry achieve high-quality development in the 14th Five Year Plan period? Recently, the 15th annual meeting of the China Textile Roundtable Forum hosted by the China Textile Industry Federation was held in Beijing. More than 100 experts and scholars from academia and the industry gathered together to discuss the future development path of the textile and clothing industry.

The competitiveness of the textile industry has significantly increased due to warmer domestic demand and counter attack on exports

"In recent years, the overall development of China's textile industry has been in the stage of deep adjustment and transformation, focusing on improving the quality of development. The textile industry has also been impacted by the epidemic in 2020." At the forum, Gao Yong, secretary of the Party Committee and secretary-general of the China Textile Industry Federation, said that with the steady progress of the resumption of production in China, various operating indicators of the textile industry continued to rise, In the second half of the year, the domestic demand market of China's textile industry showed an obvious warming trend.

According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, the year-on-year decrease in the retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats, needles and textiles of units above the designated size nationwide has gradually narrowed from more than 30% at the beginning of the year to 7.9% in the previous November.

Whether domestic demand has been improved is the most obvious feeling of enterprises. Off line, I rushed to Shanghai to participate in the domestic noodle accessories exhibition. On line, I participated in e-commerce activities for the first time, directly facing the consumer groups... Recently, Liu Peiyi, the executive vice general manager of Zhejiang Xin'ao Textile Co., Ltd., arranged a full schedule. "From the 'behind the scenes' of the supply chain to the' front of the stage 'of the sales side, the company's revenue recovered rapidly and achieved growth against the trend," Liu Peiyi said. While the domestic demand market is warming up, the export market is warming up significantly. Driven by the export of anti epidemic materials such as masks and protective clothing, the export competitiveness of China's textiles has been released steadily, and the export scale is close to the industry's historical best level in 2014.

Not only is the total export volume increasing, but also the export structure is adjusting. "Textile exports exceeded clothing exports for the first time, accounting for 52.8% of total exports, which changed the export structure of the textile industry." Gao Yong said that it should be noted that in the second half of the year, with the restart of the overseas economy, China's textile industry system and the stability of the operation of the supply chain showed advantages, clothing exports gradually improved, and by the end of the year, the decline in exports had narrowed to 6.4%.

Gao Yong introduced that looking back on the "13th Five Year Plan", China's textile industry is commendable.

In terms of scale, China's total fiber processing volume accounts for about 50% of the world's total, chemical fiber output accounts for about 70%, and the total export volume accounts for about one-third; From the perspective of comprehensive capacity, China's textile industry chain has generally reached the international advanced or leading level in terms of category, output quality, production efficiency, independent process technology and equipment.

According to the report "Strategic Research on Promoting the Construction of a Manufacturing Power Facing 2035" issued by the Chinese Academy of Engineering not long ago, the textile industry has become one of the five major industries in the advanced position in the world. Sun Ruizhe, president of China Textile Industry Federation, commented that textile technology innovation has gone from "following" to a new stage where "following, running together and leading" coexist.

To achieve high-quality development, we still need to make innovation stronger, manufacturing greener and products better

Looking forward to the 14th Five Year Plan period, how should the textile industry cope with the challenges and continue to move towards high-quality development in the face of the overall slowdown in demand and increased uncertainties in international trade?

"We must face up to the industry gap with developed countries, especially the gap between China's textile industry and the developed countries in terms of cutting-edge scientific and technological innovation, brand and fashion soft power, green development leadership, and international supply chain control." Gao Yong said that we should strengthen the advantages of manufacturing system, solve the weakness of the industrial chain supply chain, and open up a new situation in the new pattern, Achieve new development.

——Scientific and technological innovation is more "strong", which requires not only the production but also the refinement and excellence.

"In the next step, the textile industry should solve the problem of manufacturing from production to quality, and finally to good manufacturing, and truly achieve precision manufacturing, green manufacturing, and intelligent manufacturing." Shan Zhongde, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, believes that on the one hand, we should continue to promote the research and development of intelligent high-quality textile equipment, improve efficiency, performance, and digital level, Realizing automatic perception, intelligent decision-making and automatic execution; On the other hand, it also actively develops service-oriented textile manufacturing, promotes personalized customized production mode, including remote design innovation center, etc., to realize the production of personalized products by means of industrial batch, and expand market demand.

In fact, in recent years, many textile enterprises have been deeply engaged in cutting-edge technological innovation. Not long ago, at the press conference of the 6th China Industry Award, Anhui Huamao Textile Co., Ltd. won the award for its new spinning intelligent transformation project, which relied on its developed spinning intelligent manufacturing technology with multiple independent intellectual property rights. Its pioneering "air flow impurity removal and flexible opening" technology can not only improve the removal efficiency of cotton impurities, It can also reduce the fiber damage of cotton in the opening process, and greatly improve the production efficiency.

——Production and manufacturing are more "green". It is necessary not only to recycle waste products, but also to save energy and reduce carbon in the production process.

"In the past, the textile industry only cared about the end of pipe pollution control. Next, it should be promoted to the whole process control and targeted precise pollution control." Wen Zongguo, a professor at the School of Environment of Tsinghua University, believes that adopting cleaner production processes and equipment, especially the replacement of green chemicals, should become an important direction for the sustainable development of the textile industry in the future.

Wen Zongguo proposed that from the perspective of recycling of waste textiles, the proportion of recycling in China's textile industry is still low compared with that in developed countries. The next step should be to make enterprises responsible not only for product quality, but also for their recycling and waste disposal through measures such as extending producer responsibility.

——Textile products are more "excellent", strengthen the research and development of fine processing technology in the whole industry chain, and expand the market with high-end products.

In the opinion of Zhang Yansheng, the chief researcher of China International Economic Exchange Center, the textile industry in the future should tell a good story of science, technology, innovation and talent, and improve the division of labor in the global industrial chain value chain through the development of high-end textile products.

"Specifically, it is necessary to integrate new materials, new technologies and the upgrading trend of domestic consumption, develop high-end textile products with high comfort, easy care, antibacterial health care and other functions, constantly improve the quality and added value of science and technology, expand the application space of materials, so as to explore new market demand," Gao Yong said.