China'S Textile Industry Is Facing Another Pformation Pain?

　　調還是不調？中國紡織業再次面臨轉型陣痛

　　7月1日，在紡織企業與協會期盼中，“上調出口退稅”的救命政策仍未出臺。

Cao Xuejun, director of the textile and Quality Department of the national development and Reform Commission's Economic Operation Bureau, said that due to differences in the situation of the textile industry and various opinions, the various departments are still in coordination.

Since the second half of last year, China has suffered from the pressure of export slowdown, and the textile industry has been the most influential exporter.

To this end, the Ministry of Commerce, the development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of industry and information technology, the China Textile Industry Association (hereinafter referred to as China Textile Association), the China Textile Import and Export Chamber of Commerce (hereinafter referred to as the China Textile chamber of Commerce) and other departments launched extensive research in the first half of this year to seek solutions.

Among them, the call for raising the export tax rebate policy to save the textile industry is very high. The most common view is that the relevant policies will be clear by the end of June, "textile export tax rebate rate increased by 2%, garment export tax rebate rate increased by 4%".

But now it seems that this policy has been temporarily stranded for a long time.

　　尋找脫困良方

In early March this year, the chairman of the China Textile Association and the heads of the sub committees led six research teams to Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Shandong, Guangdong, Fujian and Hebei.

The six provinces have concentrated on the most powerful textile enterprises and industrial clusters in China. The purpose of the survey is to find ways to ease the plight of the textile industry.

Since the second half of 2007, the growth of China's textile exports has continued to decline.

From January to March this year, China's total exports to the United States increased by 2%, but the unit price of clothing exports dropped by 1%, and the total export volume of garments exported to the United States dropped by 4.6%.

In 2008, the export volume of textile and garment exports dropped by 11.5%, while the volume of exports to Europe and the United States dropped by 30%.

According to the national customs statistics, the garment export of the textile industry has slowed down for five consecutive months.

Li Zhixian, an analyst with Guotai Junan, said that although the total export volume remained on the surface, compared with last year, the yuan has appreciated by nearly 10%.

Therefore, the actual growth rate will be greatly reduced if the export amount is converted into Renminbi. If the inflation factor is deducted, the real growth rate of exports is likely to be zero or negative.

For most export oriented enterprises, the situation is not optimistic.

In April, the China Textile Association research group submitted the conclusions and related policy recommendations to the relevant departments of the NDRC, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of industry and information technology, and suggested that the export tax rebates for textiles and clothing should be raised from 11% to 15%, and the cotton import quasi tax should be abolished.

Wu Di, deputy director of the China Textile Economic Research Center, said that the purpose of the proposal is to hope that the structural adjustment and industrial upgrading of the textile industry can be carried out smoothly. It is hoped that the government can grasp the strength and rhythm in the formulation of policies and measures, taking into account the structural adjustment and industrial upgrading needs of the industry, taking into account the employment and social stability of a considerable number of enterprises.

In mid May, the China Textile chamber of commerce also rushed to Shandong and other provinces to investigate the export situation of textile and clothing, and then appealed to the textile and garment industry to face unprecedented difficulties, hoping that the state would relax its control policy and leave room for the survival and development of enterprises.

The China Textile chamber of commerce also reported the collection and collation of textile enterprises to the Ministry of Commerce.

Since the beginning of May, the Ministry of industry and information technology, together with the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of finance, has begun in-depth investigations and studies on relevant policies.

Li Zhixian, who has participated in policy research, said that the above departments have formed an internal report after several coordination and unified views.

Li Zhixian said that the most substantive one was the callback policy for the export tax rebate of the textile industry, that is, the textile export tax rebate rate increased by 2 percentage points and the export rebate rate of clothing increased by 4 percentage points.

The rest of the proposals are more "empty", such as giving full play to the role of trade associations and slowing down the appreciation of the renminbi.

　　轉型陣痛

The relevant reports have not been submitted yet.

Cao Xuejun said that the current policy trend is still uncertain, mainly because of the trade-off.

She believes that the development of the textile industry is indeed facing a grim situation, but because the industry itself has a large number of price competition products, the trend of pferring to low cost areas is irreversible.

"Therefore, in the short term, the one or two policies can not be changed much.

Fundamentally speaking, the development of the industry depends on structural adjustment. "

Cao Xuejun said.

However, China's textile industry, which has not yet completed structural adjustment, encountered many difficulties this year.

Textile enterprises belong to labor-intensive industries, which are small profits themselves.

According to the statistics of China Textile Association, the average profit rate of the whole textile industry is only 3.97%, of which the profit rate of the cotton textile industry is 3.93% and the clothing industry is 4.32%.

In the speech of "the 2008 China Cotton Development Summit Forum and the international cotton trade fair", Cao Xuejun attributed the difficulties in the textile industry to four aspects: first, the pressure of RMB appreciation; two, the weakening of external market demand; three, the continuous rise in production costs; and four, the impact of the macro tightening policy.

The national development and Reform Commission statistics showed that domestic textile raw material price index rose 3.3% from January to March, and the factory price index rose 1.9%.

After the implementation of the labor law this year, the labor cost of the whole industry has increased by nearly 30%.

At the same time, the closure of bank loans has also caused great pressure on the flow of funds in textile enterprises.

Wu Di said that most enterprises reflected that the approval of the loan projects of textile enterprises by banks was generally strict. In many areas, because the textile industry was considered to be a low technology level and low added value, it generally did not lend to textile enterprises, so that the technological pformation, R & D, environmental protection and other projects for enterprises to adjust and upgrade were not promoted.

Zhao Yumin, director of the international marketing department of the Ministry of Commerce and international trade and economic cooperation, said that many small and medium enterprises in the textile industry led to excessive competition in the market, making the industry's innovation and industrial upgrading too slow.

"With low profits, the capital invested in innovation is relatively low, which brings great difficulties to structural adjustment."

In the first half of this year, news of closure or loss of textile enterprises came one after another.

Wu Di said that the spread of textile enterprises is very large, and the number of workers in textile enterprises above designated size is more than 10 million 880 thousand, accounting for 20 million below the scale.

　　扶持爭議

Since 2006, the export tax rebate policy of China's textile industry has begun to readjust.

In September 15th of that year, the textile export tax rebate rate dropped from 13% to 11%.

In July 1, 2007, the export tax rebate rate for clothing, shoes and caps and bags decreased from 13% to 11%.

The export tax rebate policy is intended to promote structural adjustment and promote the pformation of the textile industry.

However, since the second half of 2007, the US subprime mortgage crisis has been fully exposed, and the world economy has been impacted, bringing about a series of problems, such as China's export slowdown.

Zhao Yumin said these were not anticipated in the process of policy adjustment.

However, once the export rebate return, will it bring back the policy?

In this regard, the industry is still controversial.

A person of the China Textile Industry Association said that the direction of the policy adjustment is to restrict the development of the industry with too much resources and too large export scale, so it has been reducing export tax rebates.

If the callback concerns the direction of policy, the government will have some concerns about it.

However, the textile industry not only involves the development of the industry, but also involves the problem of employee employment. The government will consider it from the whole.

In June 4th, Li Rongcan, director of the financial affairs department of the Ministry of Commerce, spoke at the general meeting of the Chinese medicine and health products import and Export Chamber of Commerce.

Li Rongcan said that the relevant ministries such as the Ministry of Finance and the State Administration of Taxation will keep the export tax rebate policy relatively stable, and there will be no new export tax rebate motion in the near future.

Zhao Yumin, director of the international marketing department of the Ministry of Commerce and international trade and Economic Cooperation Research Institute, said: "the direction of policy adjustment is to support innovation and structural adjustment. What is the effect of the export tax rebate on the support of innovation?

Can we really promote the adjustment and optimization of industries?

She believes that at present, textile enterprises are facing many problems in the process of pferring to the central and western regions. The government should invest more in improving infrastructure construction and pportation development in the west, so as to promote the smooth pfer of industries to the West.

On the other hand, the export tax rebate may bring about a sharp increase in exports, which is also a matter for policymakers to consider.

In 2008, EU quota restrictions on Chinese textiles were suspended. After that, China's textile exports to the EU showed a resumption of growth.

By the end of this year, the US quota on textiles will also be abolished, which may bring a new round of export peak.

"If export rebate appears again after six months, will export tax rebate be cut again?"

Zhao Yumin asked.