Five Domestic Environmental Organizations: The New Division Of Global Textile Industry Deserves Vigilance

The latest survey by environmental protection organizations found that the decline in the share of China's textile exports was mainly concentrated in the process of garment processing, while China still occupies the most important position in the textile and raw materials processing and dyeing process.

Garment processing has been pferred out of China, and the most serious dyeing and finishing links have been concentrated in China. The new division of textile industry deserves careful attention.

Deformed industrial division of labor

5 environmental groups, including friends of nature, public environment research center, Dahl asked, ring friend technology and Nanjing green stone, jointly released the green choice textile research report yesterday.

According to the report, "from an economic standpoint, China seems to have some gains and losses in the new round of global industrial division. However, from an environmental and social perspective, such a division of labor is worrisome."

According to the survey conducted by the environmental protection organizations, more and more garments products are no longer labeled "made in China" in European and American clothing stores, but made in Vietnam, made in Kampuchea, manufactured in Bangladesh, manufactured in Indonesia, and even made in Mauritius, Africa.

"The rising cost of labor is an important factor."

Workers in Vietnam, Kampuchea and Bangladesh are far below wages in China, the report said.

In Bangladesh, for example, workers in Bangladesh earn only 1/10 of their monthly wages.

Meanwhile, in order to attract foreign investment, Bangladesh can avoid income tax for 10 years in choosing garment manufacturing enterprises in its export processing zones.

According to the relevant data released by the report, in the context of the international economic crisis, Bangladesh made up 46% and 40% of knitted garments and plain woven garments in 2010 respectively than in 2009.

The rising trend is that international brands such as WAL-MART, Tesco and H&M are pferring orders to Bangladesh due to cost problems.

Ma Jun, director of the public environment research center, said that while the share of China's textile exports declined, the export volume of textile raw materials, which was heavily polluted by printing and dyeing, was steadily increasing.

According to the 2011/2012 China textile industry development report, the export volume of China's six major categories of printing and dyeing products was 14 billion 412 million meters, an increase of 13.76% over the same period last year. The export value of printing and dyeing products was 16 billion 979 million dollars, an increase of 31.26% over the same period last year, while the total value of textile exports increased by only 0.49% during the same period.

The above environmental protection organizations find that China's printing and dyeing and finishing industry has many advantages, such as sufficient industry experience, high industrial cluster, efficient industrial chain, and raw materials such as cotton production. Dyeing and finishing industry is a capital intensive industry. Large scale dyeing and finishing bases have huge investment in construction. Therefore, China has a comparative advantage over most textile processing and exporting countries.

It is expected that in a considerable period of time, the export processing of dyeing and finishing will be concentrated in China.

Garment processing has been pferred out of China, and printing and dyeing has been further concentrated on China. A new global division of labor in textile industry is quietly taking place.

The survey found that in the outflow of this industry, our country lost labor intensive clothing processing links. This link can create a large number of jobs, and relative water consumption, low energy consumption and less pollution emissions; and dyeing and finishing links are capital intensive, water consumption, high energy consumption and large amount of pollution emissions.

The data released in the report show that in the four main processes of printing and dyeing, fabric production, printing and dyeing and garment processing, water consumption accounts for 85%, energy consumption accounts for 80%, and chemical consumption accounts for 65%.

A number of well-known clothing brands responded positively to supply chain problems.

"China's current water and air pollution has been very serious. In order to alleviate such a new industrial division of labor to China's environment more adverse impact, we must vigorously control pollution emissions."

Ma Jun told reporters, "law enforcement lax, coupled with low prices of water and other resources, resulting in dyeing and finishing enterprises generally lack the power to reduce emissions.

A large number of dyeing and finishing enterprises waste water and exhaust emissions seriously, and even difficult to achieve a stable environmental compliance.

The environmental protection organization believes that the international and domestic well-known brands have the responsibility to strengthen the environmental management of suppliers, so as to avoid damage caused by their outsourcing production to China's environment and communities.

Ma Jun said that from April this year, it began a dialogue with 49 Chinese and foreign clothing brands, asking if they knew the environmental performance of the supply chain including dyeing and finishing suppliers.

Since then, 30 companies have communicated with NGO.

In September 25th, the environmental protection organizations again wrote to 49 brands, hoping that they could explain the management of material suppliers.

As of October 7th, 17 companies responded.

The report said that for the requirements of environmental protection organizations, H&M, Nike, Yida, Levi's, Adidas, WAL-MART, Burberry, GAP and other brands actively follow up, and through its regular search mechanism, actively identify pollution records in the supply chain, and promote more than 200 textile and leather supplier enterprises to make public statements on violations and subsequent rectification.

According to statistics from Ministry of environmental protection, the amount of textile wastewater discharged in 2010 amounted to 24.55 billion tons, accounting for third of the 39 industrial sectors in the current statistics, accounting for 11.6% of the total wastewater discharge from key survey and statistics enterprises. Textile industry has become one of the key industries in China's pollution prevention and control.

Reporters learned from the State Environmental Protection Department, in August 23rd, the executive meeting of the Ministry of environmental protection has discussed and adopted the "textile dyeing and finishing industry" water pollutant emissions.

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The newly revised discharge standard for water pollutants in textile dyeing and finishing industry has increased the control of pollutants such as total phosphorus, total nitrogen and adsorbable organic halogens, which has raised the control requirements for pollutant discharge.

The new standard will be issued jointly with the AQSIQ in the near future.