Nantong: Across The Century, "Textile Town" Weaving New Industries And New Dreams

"The great virtue of heaven and earth is life."

More than a hundred years ago, Zhang Xian, the founder of the Song Dynasty, founded the Dasheng cotton mill, thus weaving the everlasting beauty of the "textile town".

Today, the Nantong textile industry, which carries the century's history of the city, is striding towards a more advanced future. "We must unswervingly push forward the textile industry's innovation and development, make it bigger and stronger, and ensure that by 2025, the output value of the high-end textile industry will exceed 300 billion yuan, and become the advanced textile industry in the world, and become the leader of the global high-end textile industry." Just concluded the 2020 China Nantong international high-end textile industry exposition, a century of Nantong textile, began to dream of a new blueprint for the industry.

From history to future, we will lead the future with dreams. Adhering to the pioneering spirit of Mr. Zhang's courage and initiative, Nantong is firmly committed to the important task of building a world-class textile industrial cluster.

"Textile town" is renowned both at home and abroad.

In the Jianghai plain, the soil and climate are suitable for cotton growth. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the cotton textile industry began to emerge. The Qing Dynasty has become an important place for the production of local cloth.

At the end of the nineteenth Century, in the late Qing Dynasty, Zhang Jian, the champion of the late Qing Dynasty, adhered to the ideal of "serving the country by industry". He founded and built cotton enterprises in his hometown, and laid the foundation for the development of Nantong's textile industry. As the birthplace of China's modern textile industry, Nantong was born in China's first textile mill, China's first textile university and many other "national first".

The legend of textile industry, created by a generation of sages, has been innovating and changing over the past hundred years, and has grown and expanded. It has formed six plates, namely, home textile, cotton textile, clothing, chemical fiber, silk and printing and dyeing, covering the whole industrial chain of the upstream and downstream industries. Nantong has become one of the regions with the highest concentration and the most complete categories of textile industry in China. The output value of textile industry ranks the highest in the whole country, and the textile export ranks first in the province, and the number of employed persons accounts for more than 1/4 of the total industry. Mr. Zhang Jian's industrial dream of "quilt cover and Southeast China" has come true.

Innovate in inheritance and develop in innovation. Over the past more than 100 years, a large number of head enterprises and leading enterprises have emerged in Nantong, such as Dasheng group, Heng Ke new material, Xinyuan cocoon silk and Luo Lai life, and formed a high-end textile industrial cluster based on listed companies as the core, industry leading enterprises as support and small and medium-sized enterprises as the foundation. At present, there are more than 1000 high-end textile enterprises in the city, and 18 enterprises are among the top 500 in China's textile and garment enterprises.

Nowadays, the brand influence of "textile town" has been radiating across the country and facing the whole world. Nantong's textile products sell well in more than 150 countries and regions around the world. Among them, the high-end home textile size ranks third in the world and the first in the country. In 2019, the market volume of online and offline markets exceeded 220 billion yuan, occupying half of the domestic textile industry. It was also known as "the three largest home textile center in the world" with Fifth Avenue in Frankfurt and New York.

"The textile industry in Nantong is not only world-class in manufacturing and manufacturing, but also has high quality and high quality, and the textile products are loved by the Japanese people, and also attract famous Japanese and Dongli famous enterprises to invest in Nantong." In July 3rd, Tsuchiya Naochi, President of the Fukuoka Trade Association of Japan, praised Nantong through video links.

Traditional industries no longer "traditional"

As the most recognizable and landmark industry and characteristic industry in Nantong, the textile industry has maintained a fast development trend in recent years, but at the same time, it also faces great challenges. Take the home textile industry as an example, the lack of brand concentration, the lack of design and research capabilities, and the homogenization of products restrict the development of the industry.

Change is the trend of the times as well as the need for long-term development. "Home textile is a traditional industry, but as long as we make great efforts to innovate research and development, speed up the transformation of new and old energy, and constantly meet all kinds of consumer upgrading needs, traditional industries can still be" traditional ". In November 2018, Premier Li Keqiang made a special investigation into the home textile industry during his inspection tour, pointing out the direction for future development.

How did it change? Intelligent, green and high-end are the general directions.

With the help of innovation and transformation and upgrading, the "century old shop" pioneered the way to explore. Jiangsu Dasheng group, founded by Zhang Jian and formerly Dasheng cotton mill, has been in production for 125 years. The "digital spinning workshop" built by China is the first production line of China's textile industry.

"Intelligent manufacturing enhances the ability of enterprises to resist risks in crisis." Shen Jianhong, chairman of Dasheng group, said that the advantages of digitalized workshop, such as less employment, quick return to workers, less contact, prevention of infection, integration of production, and job replacement, lay a solid foundation for the group's comprehensive resumption of production after the outbreak.

Increase investment and speed up innovation. Today, whether Haian's joint venture is a listed company or a new generation leader of golden sun textile and other sub sectors, it is taking innovation as the leading factor to accelerate transformation. On the basis of the development of lewd fabrics, Luen has expanded its product research field to bedding products and has been moving towards the "Pyramid point". The national industrial design center, the golden sun home textile design and Research Institute, has made considerable progress in home textile product design outsourcing services, the whole industry chain research and development design and industrialization, and the transfer of intellectual property rights.

No matter what changes the textile industry has undergone, "innovation" is an everlasting topic for high-end textiles. At present, Luo Lai also invested 150 million yuan to build the "Luo Lai life science and innovation center" in the Nantong innovation area, focusing on the five modules of healthy sleep technology, human engineering technology, home textile technology, infant health technology for the elderly, and big data platform. Starting in the second half of this year, Dasheng group will invest 500 million yuan to build the first intelligent spinning factory in China. The project will realize the whole process information management and service by using 5G, Internet of things technology and equipment monitoring technology. It will become a "black light factory" in the true sense of "spinning ten thousand spindles" and "24 hours".

With enterprises as the main body to promote innovation, the technological level of textile industry is constantly improving. At present, the textile enterprises in the city have 1 state-level enterprise technology centers, 30 provincial engineering centers and 3 academician workstations. Our textile enterprises are leading or participating in the formulation of 1 international standards, 30 national standards and 124 industry standards.

Global leader in high-end textile industry

At present, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has a great impact on the textile industry, and the textile industry is faced with many external risks and uncertainties. But it is certain that with the improvement of people's living standards, the general trend of high quality textiles will not change. At the same time, the epidemic also brings inspiration: to build a strong industrial chain for the development of textile industry, we can better resist the crisis.

In the crisis, the new system will open up a new situation. Standing at the "draught" of multiple strategic opportunities and accelerating the landing, our city has put forward a new goal: by 2025, the output value of the high-end textile industry has exceeded 300 billion yuan, and has become an advanced textile industry in the world, and has become the leader of the global high-end textile industry.

The blueprint of dreams has been painted. The latest Nantong Tongzhou international textile and trade town planning and the modern textile industrial park planning of the Gulf of China are the latest to portray a specific "road map" for realizing the dream.

Home textiles firmly sit in Nantong's textile industry. The newly planned China Nantong international textile and trade city will focus on building a world-class home textile industrial cluster, focusing on building an international textile and business center, an innovative creative design center, a high-end home textile R & D and manufacturing center, a high quality goods distribution center and a new demonstration center for the integration of production and city "four centers and one new city". At present, our city is speeding up the Unified overall planning and unified development and construction of the two home textile markets of the Permian bridge and Zhihao.

Printing and dyeing is an important link in the home textile industry chain. With the goal of "making fine ecological dyeing and finishing and creating a modern textile industrial park in Tongzhou bay", we plan to build the "Modern Textile Industrial Park in Tongzhou Bay demonstration area" and "the new material industrial park of the ocean port", which will make up the two key links of high-end textile processing and new fiber materials, so as to promote the improvement of the modern textile industry chain system, and create a total economic volume of over 100 billion yuan. Tongzhou Bay is an advanced manufacturing base for new textile materials industry.

In order to build a world-class textile industry advanced area, our city has continuously increased its investment attraction, and made a breakthrough in a number of high-end textile projects, covering many fields such as design, materials, equipment, finished products, and sales. In July 3rd, 15 key projects were signed, with a total investment amounting to 33 billion 500 million yuan, of which, the total investment of Huafeng Group was 10 billion yuan, which was invested in biodegradable new material integration project in Lv Si Gang development zone, Qidong.

The strong dream of Nantong textile industry in the new era has given textile enterprises and textile people more development opportunities and important historical responsibilities. "We will take the municipal government of Nantong as the guideline for the development of high-end textiles, increase R & D efforts and effective input, and speed up the construction of intelligent spinning factories." Shen Jianhong said that Dasheng will make every effort to create a new benchmark for textile intelligent manufacturing in the 14th Five-Year plan, which will contribute to the transformation and upgrading of Nantong's textile industry and leapfrog development.

The blueprint is magnificent and the future can be expected. "Nearly 40% of our products are produced by Nantong's foreign cooperation partners. Over the years, enterprises and Nantong's industrial collaboration partners have jointly promoted the supply chain synergy efficiency, product quality, production technology, and enterprise management level. Zhou Zhong, vice president of Shanghai mercury home textiles Limited by Share Ltd, said that with the release of the latest planning in Nantong, Mercury will also plan new development strategies, optimize the layout and structure of the industry, and further integrate into the billowing trend of the development of Nantong's home textile industry.