Chinese textile import and export Chamber of Commerce is China's textile and garment export industry-leading national industry organization, member companies a total of 1.2 million homes, members of import and export accounted for about 70% of China's total textile and clothing import and export. In recent years, the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles has established close ties with textile industry and apparel organizations, institutions and enterprises in various countries and regions in the world, and has carried out in-depth cooperation in various fields such as trade, investment, information, exhibition, design and brand. It also holds a number of forums, matchmaking meetings and exhibitions to provide a platform for Chinese and foreign companies to exchange and cooperate and open up markets. We sincerely hope that through the platform of China-Asia Textile International Forum, we will exchange views and opinions on the trends and development direction of the global textile and apparel industry with our counterparts from Asia and the world, and explore the global textile and apparel industry in Asia, especially in Asia. Opportunities and challenges, sharing their successful experiences in meeting challenges, and seeking business opportunities for mutual cooperation and common development.

I. Development of China's textile and apparel trade in 2017

In 2017, driven by the slow recovery of the global economy and China's stable growth policy, China's textile and apparel exports continued to stabilize, and resumed growth after two consecutive years of decline. The total export of textile and apparel was US$268.6 billion, an increase of 0.8%, of which textile exports were US$110.49 billion, up 4.2%, and apparel exports were US$158.11 billion, down 1.4%.

From the look of imports, China's textile and apparel total annual imports of $ 24.55 billion, an increase of 5.3% since 2014, reversing three consecutive years of declining imports.

According to China Customs statistics, in 2017, China had 99,000 textile and garment export enterprises, and exported 4.74 million tons of yarn, 44.6 billion meters of fabrics and 68.5 billion pieces of clothing to 234 countries and regions around the world. There are 34,000 textile and garment importing enterprises, importing 2.63 million tons of yarn, 2.4 billion meters of fabrics and 1.5 billion pieces of garments from 159 countries and regions around the world. This set of data tells us that China, as the world's largest textile and garment producing and trading country, has always played a pivotal role in the world textile and apparel trade.

Exports mainly show the following characteristics:

First, the export situation of upstream products is better than that of downstream products.

In 2017, China's yarn exports increased by 7.8%, fabric exports increased by 4.1%, manufactured exports increased by 3.5%, and apparel exports fell by 1.4%. Clothing accounted for 59% of exports, a decrease of 8 percentage points from a decade ago. The export competitiveness of China's garment downstream products has weakened, and the competitive pressure from neighboring countries is still relatively large. The growth of upstream product exports has largely benefited from the increased demand for yarns and fabrics in China due to incomplete industrial chains.

Second, the main products maintained a growth in quantity, but export prices have declined.

2017, China's main export commodities, cotton, chemical fiber cloth, the number of non-woven fabric exports grew respectively 2.1%, 6.6%, 8.9%, but export prices fell 2.2%, 5.2% and 5.6%, respectively; knitwear and woven garments Exports increased by 2.9% and 2.7% respectively, but export prices fell by 8.5% and 1.6% respectively. The increase in the export volume of most products reflects the steady recovery of international market demand on the one hand, and the fact that China's textile and apparel products still have strong international competitive advantages. The reasons for the decline in export prices are that raw material prices have remained stable and cotton price gaps have narrowed. Second, the international market has been popular with cheap and fast fashion brands, and retail prices have been declining year after year. Third, competition from other low-cost countries has forced my company to improve production efficiency and reduce Cost to avoid excessive loss of market share.

Third, exports to the traditional market have remained stable, and exports to emerging markets have risen and fallen.

In 2017, China's exports to the EU , the United States, and Japan have basically maintained an increase or decrease of 1%. It can be said that the basic stability has been maintained, and exports to ASEAN, South America, and Russia have increased by 4.5%, 20.3%, and 6.7%, respectively. Exports to 64 countries along the “ Belt and Road ” increased by 2.9%, and exports to the Middle East fell by 8.5%.

Fourth, the emerging trade format has boosted exports.

In 2017, China’s general trade exports declined slightly, processing trade exports fell by 5.4%, and border trade exports increased by 18.8%. The rapid growth of new formats such as cross-border e-commerce and market procurement trade has become a new bright spot in the growth of textile and apparel trade. The import and export of cross-border e-commerce comprehensive experimental zone has more than doubled, and the export of market procurement trade has increased by more than 30%.

Fifth, Jiangsu and other provinces are actively pulling exports, and Xinjiang and Hebei are among the top gainers.

In 2017, among the top five export regions, exports from Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shandong increased, while exports from Guangdong and Fujian declined. Exports in Xinjiang, Hebei and Guangxi all increased by more than 15%, ranking the top in the country.

Although the overall export situation has shown a good trend this year, from the development trend and characteristics of the textile and garment industry in recent years, the international economic environment has great uncertainty, international competition has become increasingly fierce, low-cost countries have risen, and global raw material prices have fluctuated greatly. trade protectionism, Chinese enterprises to speed up overseas distribution, transformation and upgrading of the domestic industry pressure, China's textile and garment exports in the future will face a new long-term normal slight fluctuations up and down, slow decline of international market share.

Second, the main challenges

First, exchange rate fluctuations have caused corporate profits to be lost.

Second, the external situation has become more severe and trade friction cases have increased.

In 2017, trade remedy cases for the textile and apparel industry continued to show an active and rising trend. There were 11 new cases and 1 early warning case in the whole year. The amount of the new case involved was 510 million US dollars, an increase of 22% over last year. The case involved many countries and regions such as the United States, India, Colombia, Turkey and Indonesia.

Third, the rising labor costs and the shortage of labor continue to exist.

Fourth, environmental remediation tremendous impact on the textile industry.

Fifth, China's market share in the world continues to decrease.

According to WTO data, China’s share of global textile and apparel trade declined for the first time in 20 years in 2016, at 36.7%, a decrease of 1.8 percentage points from the previous year. Among them, textile exports accounted for 37.2% of the global share, down 0.2 percentage points from the previous year, and clothing exports accounted for 36.4% of the global share, a decrease of nearly 3 percentage points. China’s share of the world’s major markets has also continued to decline. In 2017, China’s market share in the EU, the US and Japan fell by four, 2.5 and 10 percentage points respectively from five years ago.

Third, new opportunities for future development

In recent years, China's textile and apparel exports have declined. Some people think that the textile and garment industry has become a “sunset industry” in China, which has a pessimistic view on the future development of China's textile and apparel industry. However, most enterprises in the industry still have competition for the future of China's textile and garment industry. Have confidence. We believe that only the sunset business, there is no sunset industry. Where does our confidence come from?

First, the “Belt and Road Initiative” will effectively strengthen China's core position in the textile and apparel supply chain in Asia and the world.

With the deepening of capacity cooperation between China and neighboring countries, the Asian region has formed a complete industrial chain with China as the center, which not only promotes the export of Asian countries to the developed countries and China's huge consumer market, but also promotes the yarn within Asian countries. Line and fabric trade. In 2013, ASEAN surpassed Japan for the first time to become China's third largest textile and apparel export market. At present, Vietnam and Bangladesh are the first and second largest yarn and fabric export destinations in China. At the same time, Vietnam also became China's largest source of textile and apparel imports for the first time in 2016.

Second, Xinjiang, Henan and other central and western regions to undertake the eastern industrial transfer positive for the manufacturing industry remain in the country to provide strong support.

In order to maintain the stable development of China's foreign trade, in 2016 the Chinese government introduced a package of encouragement policies to undertake industrial transfer in the eastern coastal areas of the central and western regions, and guided the transfer of processing trade industries from the eastern coastal areas to the central and western regions in an orderly manner. Xinjiang, Henan and other regions have become hot spots for domestic textile enterprises by virtue of cotton resources and labor advantages, as well as generous preferential policies and superior geographical position.

Third, the transformation and upgrading of “ Made in China ” is the fundamental basis for China's textile and apparel to maintain export competitive advantage.

Faced with downward pressure on exports, the endogenous power of enterprise transformation and upgrading has gradually increased. Through intelligent manufacturing , industrial chain integration and brand building, the overall competitiveness of the industry has been effectively improved. Vigorously transform and upgrade traditional industries and implement "Made in China 2025" in depth. The textile and garment industry has undergone a profound transformation from “big” to “strong”, and intelligent manufacturing has become an important driving force for innovation in industrial upgrading. In addition, Chinese companies have increased their efforts in design and branding in recent years, basically achieving the leap from OEM to ODM, and are advancing toward the goal of independent brand manufacturing (OBM).

The fourth is to speed up the construction of the base, constantly highlighting the location advantages and creating regional brands.

Accelerating the construction of bases and cultivating industrial clusters is an important task for the Chinese government to promote foreign trade development in 2107. At present, there are more than 40 textile and garment foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases across the country, which provides strong support for China to maintain its position as the world's largest textile and garment exporter. In the future development, the inside of the base should give full play to the leading role of leading enterprises, gradually improve the industrial chain, form the advantages of featured products, accelerate the construction of smart factories, enhance the design and research and development capabilities, and raise environmental awareness, and then create regional brands.

Fifth, the structural changes in the international market structure have provided new opportunities for Chinese companies.

At present, driven by the wave of new technologies, international textile and apparel consumption and market patterns are undergoing structural changes. Amazon and other electricity supplier giants rapid development, the traditional retail has been a huge challenge, even fast fashion "super fast fashion" brand rapid rise, the rise of niche designer labels, custom-branded, the rapid expansion of the scale of cross-border electricity supplier, consumer preferences and buying The behavior is changing with each passing day, the order is personalized, customized, and the trend of fragmentation is obvious. The “moral procurement” is prevalent, all of which puts higher requirements on the supplier's rapid response capability, resource integration capability and social responsibility fulfillment ability. The advantage of gaining an advantage in international competition offers new opportunities.

Sixth, the huge potential of China's domestic market provides survival guarantee for China's textile and garment industry.

In 2016, China surpassed the United States for the first time and became the world's largest clothing retail market. In 2017, China's retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats, needles and textiles above designated size reached 1.4 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.8%. The growth rate was 0.8 percentage points higher than the previous year and 3.8 times higher than that of a decade ago. Since China's accession to the WTO, China's textile and apparel imports, especially clothing and other end products, have maintained rapid growth in imports. China's apparel imports increased from 1.22 billion US dollars in 2001 to 7.18 billion US dollars in 2017, a cumulative increase of 4.9 times. The proportion of imports also increased from 8.8% in 2001 to 29.2%. According to the statistics of the World Trade Organization, in 2016, China is not only the world's largest textile and garment exporter, but also the world's third largest textile importer and the seventh largest garment importer.

Since December 1, 2017, China has temporarily lowered the import tariffs on consumer goods of 187 tariff lines, including 26 clothing and home textile products, such as men's and women's suits, coats, cashmere sweaters, cashmere scarves, etc. From 14-25% to 5-10%, the tax reduction rate is 9-15%. This policy initiative will also boost China's import growth.

In May last year, at the “Belt and Road” International Summit Forum held in Beijing, President Xi Jinping announced that the Chinese government will hold the first “China International Import Expo” in 2018. This is a major initiative for China to open its market to the world and is conducive to expansion. Importing and promoting the balanced development of foreign trade is an open cooperation platform for countries around the world to display their national image and conduct international trade. It is also an international public product that promotes the construction of the “Belt and Road” and promotes economic globalization. At that time, the China Textile Import and Export Chamber of Commerce will actively participate in the preparation and organization of the import fair, and provide convenience and assistance for the world's textile and apparel products to enter the Chinese market.

The future development of China's textile and garment industry should focus on the main theme of the country's “Belt and Road” construction and industry transformation and upgrading, and innovate development methods in terms of improving the industrial chain, integrating the supply chain, and enhancing the value chain, promoting the industry's continuous upgrading and seeking professionalism. Development, differentiation, lean and international development. Although textiles and clothing are traditional industries, as long as they are accelerated with new kinetic energy, traditional industries can dig new gold mines.

China's development has entered a new era. The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles has also entered a new stage of development. The China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Textiles will continue to deepen reforms in a comprehensive manner, adhere to the new development concept, work together with people from all walks of life and industry colleagues to promote the transformation, upgrading and innovation of the textile and garment industry, and continue to use its advantages in exhibitions and international forums. , industry docking, personnel training, legal aid and information consultation to provide better and better services for enterprises.