NEWS

According to the data of China Customs, from January to August 2022, the cumulative export value of Chinese textiles and clothing was 2203 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 11%, among which the cumulative export value of textiles (including textile yarns, fabrics and products) was 102.3 billion US dollars, with a year-on-year growth of 10.2%. Cumulative exports of clothing, including clothing and accessories, were $118bn, up 11.6 per cent year on year.

As an important production base of textile and garment industry, Guangdong's annual output of garments accounts for about 1/3 of the country's total. Since the Regional Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) came into effect, Chinese textile and apparel exports to RCEP member countries have enjoyed preferential tariff rates, among which textile and footwear products are important items for which Japan has reduced tariffs on China under the RCEP. In the first eight months of this year, Guangzhou Customs issued 909 RCEP certificates of origin for textile and garment enterprises from RCEP member States, with a value of 188 million yuan. But even full of guangdong textile industry chain has a mature, but with the environmental policy implementation, the industrial transformation and upgrading, the demographic dividend disappear and sino-us trade friction, tariffs, and so on impact, in the "volume in the west with" position, low cost advantage has been in southeast Asia according to the friction on the ground, the choice of "run away" southeast Asia into the industry's most enterprises.

The domestic similar industry upgrade transfer is also helpless: first, the industry gradually began to establish, our textile machinery export share gradually entered the front echelon; Second, the trend of low value-added industries migrating to Southeast Asia is irreversible.

Domestic textile industry struggles to survive

The textile and garment industry has always been the traditional pillar industry of the national economy, providing a large number of jobs, and has played an important role in guaranteeing employment. The domestic textile industry has experienced three stages:

2001-2010.

After China's entry into WTO, the foreign trade demand drives the rapid development of domestic textile industry and gradually becomes the world textile factory. By 2010, China had produced 38.345 billion meters of cotton cloth, 27.17 million tons of yarn and 17.75 billion meters of chemical fabric.
2011-2017.
With labor, land and other production costs rising significantly, the industry has entered a bottleneck period. The output growth of yarn and chemical fiber slowed down significantly, while the output of cotton cloth and clothing showed a trend of fluctuation decline.
Since 2018
The output of major products in the industry shows a negative growth state, and the industry gradually shows fatigue, which has come to the key node of industrial transformation and upgrading.

After 30 years of rapid development, the whole industry chain has been formed. But the midlife crisis also comes along.

First, the textile and garment industry is a typical labor-intensive industry that has long relied on demographic dividend. In the past three decades, China, as the world's most populous country, has brought sufficient or even excessive demographic dividends to the industry, laying a solid foundation for the rapid development of the industry. However, success is not without failure. With the development of economy, the rising birth cost leads to a significant decrease in the birth rate year by year and the disappearance of the demographic dividend, which directly leads to the higher and higher production costs of textile enterprises.

Second, in order to promote sustainable economic development and promote low-carbon and environmental protection production, the state has increasingly higher environmental protection requirements on the manufacturing industry, while the textile industry, as the second largest industrial polluting industry, has been basically squeezed by the new Environmental Protection Law, and the emission threshold has been raised repeatedly.
Third, the start of the trade war between China and the United States. The United States is a large export market for Chinese textiles and a large cotton supplier for Chinese textile industry, accounting for 44% of the total supply. After the outbreak of the trade war, the US first imposed tariffs on cotton, which raised the cost of imports by more than 3,500 yuan per ton that year, and dealt a heavy blow to Chinese pure cotton spunlace nonwovens. The tariffs imposed by the United States in the second round include all yarns, fabrics, industrial textiles and some textile machinery products of various raw materials (cotton, wool, silk, hemp and chemical fibers). The cost of Chinese textiles has skyrocketed, and its position in the United States is being challenged by emerging countries, such as Mexico and Turkey

Where is China's textile and garment industry going?

Leading enterprises have capital and technological advantages, and transferring production capacity overseas can obtain local cost advantages. There are many large enterprises that have already set up factories or have been officially declared to do so, but they also encounter some difficulties in the process of transfer.

First of all, the industrial chain of Southeast Asia is not of the same order as the domestic industrial chain. It was originally positioned as a contract manufacturer. Many raw materials need to be supplied by China, and the high transportation costs of raw materials offset the advantages of labor costs to some extent.
Second, southeast Asian workers quality can't compare with the Chinese workers, Chinese workers bear hardships and stand hard work, work overtime slasher worldwide are notoriously, southeast Asia because of historical reasons, work attitude reference to Europe and the United States but not 1/10 European and American technology, more entrepreneurs who said that Chinese factory production efficiency is about 2.5 times that of southeast Asia factory Stacking this BUFF basically negates the production cost advantage.
Finally, local environment, religious belief and language barrier are also the problems that Chinese enterprises must face. Some Chinese enterprises do not speak the same language when opening factories in Southeast Asian countries, so they need to be accompanied by translators, which has caused a lot of labor and time costs.
However, the future development direction of labor-intensive industries is still to the raw material end and consumption end of the two directions.
In the value chain of the textile industry, profitable brands and sales are mainly controlled by the United States, Europe and a few Japanese and South Korean enterprises, followed by advanced fabric production in Japan and South Korea in the first place, and high-quality wool and other raw materials Australia has a say. On the whole, China, Southeast Asia and other countries are still at the lower end of the value chain.
The future development direction of China's textile industry is to improve the added value of products: for example, the research and development of fiber and textile materials, the extension to the superior raw materials and brand sales at both ends of the industrial chain, and the transfer of the low added value part of the industry to the surrounding countries is the law of economic development.
Compared with the receiving countries, China's textile and garment industry has a complete and complete industrial chain, high-quality raw materials such as cotton and wool, and a complete production base. China has high-quality textile technicians, a high degree of industrial automation, high unit production efficiency, and rapid development of the chemical industry. The shift to the raw material end is not a problem.
In addition, China has a huge consumer market. With the upgrading of residents' consumption and the development of domestic brands, it is conducive to the development of domestic brands in the textile and clothing industry and brand design. At present, some domestic brands with good reputation have accumulated achievements.
In the textile clothing size, before the great advantage of form a complete set of industrial chain, China's textile and garment industry in the global trade status is difficult to shake, in Vietnam, for example, has such information from Vietnam textile exports more than shenzhen, but its trace, the main export market for still lies in the Chinese market, synthetic yarn mainly from China and Vietnam, Vietnam's textile industry is more like a Chinese industry downstream.
China's textile industry faces the pressure of rising labor costs, but it still has great advantages in improving the industrial chain, infrastructure and labor quality. The production quality and unit efficiency are still higher than those in Southeast Asia and South Asia. Industrial upgrading, it is inevitable that Chinese industries migrate to value-added manufacturing.