Clothing Exports Are Mainly "Cheap" In Exchange For Market Share.

Garment industry is an important support for China's national economy. It plays an irreplaceable role in providing employment and contributing to GDP, especially in export trade.

China's apparel industry is the world's largest garment producer and consumer country.

According to the data of the National Bureau of statistics, in 2011, 36 thousand Textile Enterprises above Designated Size reached 5 trillion and 478 billion 650 million yuan in industrial output value, 5 trillion and 360 billion 170 million yuan in sales value, and 25 billion 420 million in clothing production.

According to customs statistics, China's textile and clothing exports totaled US $254 billion 120 million in 2011.

However, China's garment industry has basically not been separated from the low level stage to satisfy people's "product demand", and exports are mainly "cheap" in exchange for market share.

With the slowdown in domestic demand and the international economic downturn, the growth rate of the garment industry is slowing down.

According to the Statistics Center of China Textile Industry Association, in the 1-4 months of this year, China's clothing exports totaled 40 billion 270 million US dollars, with a growth rate of 1.77%, a decrease of 25.98 percentage points over the same period last year, of which 8 billion 720 million US dollars were exported to the EU region, representing a decrease of 13.35% over the same period last year.

According to statistics, in the 1-5 months of this year, China's textile and garment enterprises above Designated Size achieved 1 trillion and 757 billion 158 million yuan in domestic sales value, an increase of 13.44% over the same period last year, and the growth rate dropped by 18.51 percentage points over the same period last year. During the same period, China's export textile and clothing increased by 2.06%, an increase of 2.06% percentage points over the same period last year, representing a 24.47 percentage point decrease compared with the same period last year, which is less than 6.64 percentage points of the total export volume of the same period in the same period last year.

Quanzhou is famous for its clothing manufacturing.

It is reported that in the first half of this year, orders for clothing, sports shoes, umbrellas, bags and other industries were reduced. Especially since April, some enterprises can only receive some sporadic small orders, and the unit price has also fallen dramatically. Some export orders in Europe have seen a rare case of slipping 20% below the unit price.

Domestic sales are beginning to get cold, and inventory has become a topic.

At present, the difficulties encountered in China's clothing industry are caused by the slowdown of global economic development on the surface, but there are many deep levels of problems. In order to achieve sustainable and stable development, the clothing industry must seriously think and persist in solving the series of problems.

"Product demand" and "brand demand"

With the development of economy and society, consumers have gradually shifted from "product demand" to "brand demand", and people have chosen the clothing to reflect the taste of life.

Therefore, the global garment industry pays more attention to design, function, marketing and other brand building DNA, and seeks high value-added products.

Over the past 10 years, with the booming of China's economy, international brands have shifted the focus of globalization strategy to the Chinese market, and have won more and more consumers here.

Although China's apparel industry is the world's top producer, there is no sign of an international brand.

Design is the core value of clothing.

China's clothing industry, however, seems to be so outdated both in terms of design and creativity.

Most of the enterprises still stay in the traditional mode, and the design is still in the backward stage of paper lofting, which takes much time and the cost of trial production is high. As a result, the development cycle of new products is very long. In the developed countries of garment industry, the average period is 2 weeks, and the United States can reach 4 days as fast as possible, while the average in China is 10 weeks, and the gap is very obvious.

Designers with strong brand awareness and advanced concepts, and enthusiastic and creative designers are important prerequisite for creating brands. They integrate personality styles into products to make them have cultural identity and win consumers. However, there are not many designers in China who really can be called fashion designers. Designers with unique personality and who can grasp the cultural psychology of consumers at home and abroad need to be trained.

Technology and equipment determine the efficiency and quality of clothing production.

Germany and France are the main producers of textile and clothing equipment in the world. Their equipment is widely used in the world garment industry. Some can be said to be indispensable. However, in our large number of garment enterprises, there are not many users, and even worse, even if they are used, there is a gap, because good equipment must have good applied talents.

This will inevitably result in the gap of product quality, while the low labor productivity can only be made up of low cost labor force. But now, the labor cost in China is also rising, and this remedial space will be continuously compressed.

In the big shopping malls of big cities in China, there are many top brands in addition to the top brands everywhere. There are also many low-priced brands from abroad.

This means that our own clothing industry is suffering from all directional extrusion: when we export large quantities of unbranded clothing or make brand clothing to earn a small profit, people are trying to occupy a huge market in China with a brand full of personalities and various "stories" and win high profits.

Shortage of talents is the biggest obstacle.

Apart from designers, garment industry also needs various professionals, such as plate making, craft, marketing and so on.

Although China is the largest country in garment manufacturing and export, talent is scarce.

At present, there are more than 3000 garment enterprises in Shanghai and hundreds of thousands of employees, and only 4% of them are engaged in garment design, plate making, craft and so on.

The incumbency division of our country has less than 10% of the higher education and less than 6% of the professional training.

The shortage of talents is the biggest obstacle to the sustainable development of China's garment industry.

Challenges force us to break through.

Recently, the Shanghai suit Specialized Committee has pushed the "men's clothing advanced manual customization" and "China's national costume development", which has attracted the attention of the relevant state departments and colleges and universities.

China has already bid farewell to the shortage economy, consumers have a spiritual demand for clothing, and have obviously shifted from "product demand" to "brand demand".

China's clothing industry should actively adapt to this great change, enhance its awareness of the international market and modern aesthetic concepts, strive to have keen fashion sense and unique design concept, and integrate the practical value, cultural value and aesthetic value creatively into the costumes so as to enhance the quality and enhance the added value of the products.

From "made in China" to "made in China", not only the hi-tech industry should strive hard, but also the garment industry must make unremitting efforts.

In the field of medium and low end clothing, we should and can gradually create various brands with unique styles in order to win the consumers' favor in China and the world.