Gu Qingliang: The Thought And Practice Of China'S Textile And Garment Industry Entering The Market For 10 Years

In 2011, China applied for "25th anniversary", 10th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO, and the 15th anniversary of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This is an important event in the world's economic development today, and is of great significance to China's textile industry. China's accession to the WTO has made the Chinese textile and garment industry experience the thought and practice. Sharpen 。

　　 Safeguarding the world Trade Healthy

The GATT evolved into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Its original intention was to promote trade liberalization. The first practical thing in the establishment of WTO was the implementation of the agreement on textile and clothing (ATC), which stipulates that the textile industry will gradually return to textile during the 10 years (1995~2004). clothing Trade liberalization eventually abolished the distorted trade system multi fibre agreement (MFA).

The multi fibre agreement is based on the bilateral negotiation mechanism. It is essentially a unilateralism trade system which decides the quota and tariff treatment by the developed countries (the major importers of textiles and clothing). Under this unfair system, the comparative advantage of the main textile and garment exporting countries is suppressed, while China is the biggest victim of MFA (Figure two, Fig. 2). The multi fibre agreement is a hindrance to the development of world trade, and the optimization and upgrading of the economies of all countries, including developed countries, is a counterflow to the rational transfer of the global economy. It is also a trade hegemony for developing countries and less developed countries. Under such artificial umbrella, the comparative advantages of all countries are suppressed, while the protected countries' international competitiveness is not rising or falling.

The abolition of China's accession to the WTO and MFA has not only made the Chinese textile industry in a fairer competitive environment, but also promoted the comparative advantage of the world, and promoted the healthy development of the world's textile trade. Since 1996, the world's textile and apparel trade has entered a rapid growth, and the trade in clothing and textiles has increased rapidly after China's accession to the WTO in 2001. (Fig. three) in the meantime, the world population increased by 14%, fiber production increased by more than 30%, while the trade in fiber products increased by more than 60%.

　　 Integration into the global industry network Restructure

After joining the WTO, China's textile industry accelerates into the global textile industry network. China's textile comparative advantage has been fully released and entered a wider international market, making full use of international resources. China's textile industry has embarked on a period of rapid development. The export of textiles (SITC65) and clothing (SITC84) is much higher than that of other traditional textile and garment exporting countries. (Figure four, figure five), especially the termination of MFA, eliminates unreasonable trade barriers, avoids or reduces the impact and risks of non economic factors, and further optimizes China's textile industry structure.

On the other hand, after China's accession to the WTO, the promise of market opening has promoted the upgrading of domestic industries, and the involvement of international retail industry has widened domestic demand channels and export routes, and the clothing domestic demand market is far higher than the growth rate of GDP. (Fig. six) although the import base of textile and clothing is not large, it has increased steadily, and the import of clothing has increased 3 times in 10 years. The opening of the market not only meets the needs of consumers at all levels, makes the fashion consumer market more mature, but also enables the Chinese textile and garment industry to cultivate its own brand, channel and fashion design professional team, and promotes the upgrading of the value chain. China's textile and clothing export dependence also tends to be reasonable, forming two driving forces of domestic demand and export.

The restructuring of the global industrial network and the change of the international trade pattern have accelerated the transfer of China's textile industry and the optimization of the industrial structure. After ten years of training, the industry system has been initially established with a reasonable industrial chain, complete industrial chain, complete industrial departments and abundant product lines. Spin Power.

Reshaping the world outlook

China has applied for "re entry" to the WTO for 15 years. After the WTO transition period, China and the world are reshaping the "world outlook".

Looking back on the process of China's resumption of GATT (resumption of the status of the members of the GATT) and China's accession to the WTO, China's textile and clothing trade is the biggest obstacle to negotiation and the focus of controversy. Finally, China made a concession to the overall situation and signed a transitional agreement on textile special safeguard measures (242 terms 2008 to the end) and general product protection measures (16 due in 2013). The reason for this arrangement is unreasonable because of a prejudice in the developed countries: China's accession to WTO will hurt its industries. Such unilateral thinking in developed countries also continued until the abolition of MFA.

In fact, a research report released by the US International Trade Commission (ITC) after China's accession to the WTO holds that China's accession to the WTO, especially the abolition of quotas in 2005, has resulted in an increase in the US gross domestic product (GDP) and total social welfare, which has no significant impact on the level of labor wages in the United States. But it contributes to the growth of retail circulation and service trade in the United States. China's economic aggregate and social welfare will increase greatly, and the import of advanced equipment and agricultural products will also increase greatly, which will help the economic restructuring and economic upgrading of both sides. {page_break}

After China's accession to the WTO and the abolition of the multi fibre agreement, the world trade has further returned to the WTO free trade principle. The comparative advantage of China, including other countries in the world, has been released. The global trade pattern and the economic structure of various countries have become more rational. It has accelerated the rational and balanced development of the world economy and promoted the optimization and adjustment of the textile global industrial network (GPN). As a result, the total volume of world textiles (SITC65) and clothing (SITC84) has been greatly increased (Fig. three). Taking the OECD market as an example, although the market share of developed countries has declined, the total volume of trade is still growing. Of course, this does not include the benefits of intellectual property and service trade in developed countries such as licensing and retailing in textile and clothing brands.

Learn from pain and build harmony

At the beginning of the WTO accession, the industry was too optimistic about China's integration into the world's textile industry, and was not prepared enough for competition and friction from other textile and garment exporting countries.

After joining the WTO for 10 years, China's textile industry should re-examine its development strategy, change the short-sighted export oriented theory, cost oriented competition and simple scale expansion mode, and establish a sustainable development strategy based on balanced, harmonious growth and cooperative competition.

Another trend is the industry's doubts about accelerating the integration into the global economy after China's accession to the WTO, such as opening up the market, implementing national treatment, allowing foreign capital to enter the retail circulation industry, and so on. It is feared that the entry of foreign capital, foreign enterprises and foreign products will impact domestic market and industry. The automobile industry and the machinery industry are more of a "wolf coming" panic. After entering the WTO for ten years, these industries, which are regarded as lacking competitiveness, have become the largest industry in the world. In fact, the entry of foreign retail business has not only changed the retail industry in China completely, but also greatly increased the vitality of competition. The opening of the market has promoted the market competition as a whole, has satisfied the needs of consumers, improved the taste of consumers, made the domestic market more mature, enhanced the competitiveness of the domestic textile and garment industry, improved the design level and brand operation ability of textile and garment industry, accelerated the improvement of domestic retail channels, and promoted the transformation of China's textile industry from OEA, OEM to ODM and OBM. Transnational retailers have also become important buyers of Chinese textile overseas market.

As the world's largest consumer of fiber and products, China has fulfilled the promise of opening up the market, continuously lowering import tariffs, eliminating import tariffs on textiles and clothing from less developed countries, increasing imports of fiber, fabrics and clothing products from these countries and regions, and actively promoting trade and technical exchanges between countries, especially South South cooperation.

The sustainable route of a powerful nation

China's clothing imports in 2008 were about 3 times that of 2001, during which textile imports increased by about 27%, while cotton imports increased by 17 times. China has particularly strengthened cooperation with African cotton producing countries. China has become the second largest country in the world for high-end fashion consumption, and the demand growth of Chinese consumers' products in the external world has become an important force in stimulating the world's textile and garment industry. China strives to balance the world's textile and clothing trade, and implement an omni-directional multilateral trade policy. In particular, it has strengthened technology export, investment, cooperative operation and trade promotion activities for less developed countries.

In the 10 years after China's accession to the WTO, China's textile industry has entered the stage of "increasing quantity and quality" from the stage of rapid growth. "Sharp increase in quantity" requires not only to maintain the export growth of the international market and to grasp the opportunities for industrial transformation and development brought about by the growth of domestic demand, but also to enhance the connotation of the industry, the quality of "made in China", the added value of tons of fiber, the ability to govern the global textile and apparel value chain and the sustainable development of green, low-carbon, environmentally friendly and harmonious society.

China's textile industry should change its outlook on the world, balance the import and export trade, adjust the structure of internal and external needs, achieve the new round of growth through capital restructuring through technological progress, optimize the industrial layout through the industrial transfer, explore new growth space, innovate the way of thinking, change the growth mode, and promote industrial upgrading; and adjust the industry (space, market, product) structure, and practice the sustainable development route.