Is The Textile And Garment Industry "In Winter"?

As an important traditional labor-intensive export industry,

The industry has always occupied a large proportion in China's export trade.

However, since 2015, affected by the global economic slowdown, exchange rate fluctuations and high domestic manufacturing costs, China's textile and garment exports have been declining continuously, and the situation is not optimistic.

Against this background, the news of the failure of the famous enterprises in textile and garment industry has ceased.

Is the textile and garment industry "in winter"?

Global market suffers from "cold current"

"The weak economic environment and rising labor costs should be the main reason for the development of textile and garment industry in recent years. This is also the two most profound factor that I feel."

Zhang Haibing, general manager of Shanghai AI yuan Textile Co., Ltd., said in an interview with reporters.

Fu Jin, general manager of Trade Department of Ningbo Hua Liu duo Fashion Co., Ltd., said that in 2015, the company's orders for exporting to the European market dropped sharply compared with 2014, and exported to Russia.

The order is simply gone.

According to customs statistics, in 2015, the total volume of textile and apparel trade in China was 309 billion 510 million US dollars, down 4.8% from the same period last year.

Of which, exports amounted to 283 billion 900 million US dollars, down 4.9% from the same period last year, and imports of US $25 billion 610 million, down 3.5% compared with the same period last year. The cumulative trade surplus was 258 billion 290 million US dollars, down 5% from the same period last year.

Insiders pointed out that the reasons for the decline in textile and clothing exports in 2015 were many, and the weak external demand should not be ignored: the EU economy has been in a doldrums, the EU member countries' economic development has been unbalanced, the unemployment rate in Greece and other countries has been continuously high, and the consumption demand of the people has been limited; the total import of Japanese market has declined in recent years, and the speed of industrial pfer has accelerated; the share of Chinese products in Japan has continued to decline; the ASEAN market has not been able to continue the upward trend of the previous years, and has fallen rapidly; the Russian market has fallen sharply; only the US market has remained relatively stable.

According to the EU customs statistics, in 2015 1~10 months, the EU imported $106 billion 290 million from global textiles and clothing, down 8.8%.

The total import of textiles and garments from the European Union has fallen by US $39 billion 520 million, down by 10.2%, a decline over average, and imports of textiles and garments from ASEAN to US $10 billion 350 million, an increase of 0.1% against the trend.

China's textile and apparel market share in the EU was 37.2%, down 0.6 percentage points over the same period last year.

According to Japanese customs statistics, in 2015, Japan imported $36 billion 840 million of textiles and clothing in the whole year, down 8.2%.

Among them, imports from China amounted to 23 billion 770 million US dollars, a decrease of 12.1%, a decline of over average, and an increase of 5.8% from ASEAN's imports of US $7 billion 810 million.

The share of China's textile and apparel in Japan has continued to shrink, dropping by nearly 3 percentage points to 64.5% after falling below 70% in 2014.

Internal factors highlight

Insiders pointed out that the reasons for the decline in export of the textile and garment industry were different from those in 2009. In 2009, the volume of trade was sharply contracted due to the sudden global financial crisis, and the decline in exports in 2015 was due to the structural decline caused by the disappearance of China's traditional export advantage and the superposition of internal and external unfavorable environment.

Zhang Haibing said that the rise of labor costs is almost the common problem faced by all textile and garment enterprises in China, and is also the most intractable problem faced by labor-intensive industries.

Due to rising labor costs, many orders have begun to pfer to Southeast Asia.

"The technology and management of Southeast Asian countries are lagging behind China. Our company mainly produces high-end clothing products, so the impact is not very big. But some of my friends' businesses last year showed an 20%~30% decline in orders."

After the introduction of the new labor law in 2008, labor costs in China doubled more than 5 years ago.

As the textile and garment industry is a typical labor-intensive enterprise, the rise in labor costs has brought unimaginable pressure to the operation of enterprises.

Especially in recent years, due to the sharp increase in domestic costs, many foreign-funded enterprises have been pferred to South Asia and Southeast Asia on a large scale. The most famous ones include Adidas, Nike, UNIQLO, Muji and so on.

In addition, the pressure of environmental protection is also one of the factors that increase the cost of textile and garment enterprises.

Fu Jin said that in recent years, environmental protection has been intensified. Many dyeing factories are facing rectification, and a large number of old equipment are forced to be eliminated. The rising cost of raw materials such as dyestuffs has indirectly led to the rising cost of textile and garment enterprises.

In addition, SME financing difficulties and other problems still exist and become increasingly prominent.

Zhang Haibing said, because last year, the overall situation of clothing and textile industry has declined, leading to the establishment of a higher financing threshold for large banks to assess the company's capital and assets. This has become an obstacle to the development of the company.

"If you can't get the money, the company's growth rate will naturally slow down and fall into a bad cycle."