Advantages Of China'S Textile Industry Development Under Globalization

Textile industry is a typical labor-intensive industry. Since the 1990s, China's textile industry has made great progress. Textile and clothing exports account for more than one-third of the global total exports, and is the largest country in the world's textile and clothing manufacturing and export. In this process, the textile industry has experienced a difficult process. The cotton spinning pressing policy implemented in the 1990s is similar to today's supply side structural reform, or exploration and practice of supply side structural reform.

China's textile industry under Globalization

Textile and garment industry is an important advantage industry in China. After China's entry into WTO in 2001, the demand of textile industry has been fundamentally reversed. In the past 15 years, China's cotton spinning spindles have increased three times. The textile and garment industry has ushered in a historic high-speed development. The logic of overcapacity at the beginning has fallen into embarrassment, and there are some new discussions on the implementation of ingot pressing policy. How to formulate and implement the total amount control policy, industrial assistance policy and industrial regional policy under the condition of globalization has become a topic that needs further discussion.

According to the data of the fourth national economic census released at the end of 2019, there are 1.21 million legal person enterprises in the textile and clothing industry, with assets of 9.37 trillion yuan. In 2018, the operating revenue reached 12.7 trillion yuan, more than 14% of China's GDP in that year, making it the second largest industrial sector in China after electronic information industry.

As many as 15.636 million people are directly employed by legal person enterprises in the textile and clothing industry. In addition to individual businesses and cotton farmers in the agricultural field, it is estimated that the direct employment of the industry is 25 million, which directly affects the livelihood of about 20 million families, that is, 80 million to 100 million people.

During the two sessions of the NPC and CPPCC this year, various topics related to the development of people's livelihood have been frequently searched and resonated with everyone. Chen Lifen, deputy to the National People's Congress, proposed to further create new advantages in international competition of industrial textiles. She suggested that in order to improve relevant policies and measures, guide and support the development of industrial textiles industry, firstly, it is necessary to enhance the status of industrial textiles in industry classification; secondly, it is necessary to establish a National Technical Committee for standardization of industrial textiles; thirdly, it is necessary to establish a national Innovation Center for industrial textiles.

In fact, as a part of strategic new materials, industrial textiles have become one of the most dynamic areas in China's industrial system, showing a huge development space under the dual cycle development pattern. In the future, the textile industry needs to face the problems of rising factor cost and declining competitive advantage, and the problem of overcapacity will gradually become prominent. In order to ensure the stability of employment and maintain the overall industrial advantage of China, it is necessary to study the relevant policies and measures under the new situation.

Metropolitan area also needs urban industry

In the core circle of metropolitan area, various types of industries and producer services that can better meet the needs of urban life exist in various forms. Although the transformation of traditional manufacturing industry continues to advance and the service economy continues to develop, urban industry still occupies a place in the urban economy.

Due to historical reasons, "large-scale" traditional manufacturing industries have been distributed in China's big cities. The products of these enterprises are not high in technology, but they have a large number of employees and occupy a large area. Take Shanghai textile industry as an example: at the end of 1991, there were 494 state-owned textile and garment enterprises in Shanghai, with 535000 employees and 280000 retired employees. The factory covers an area of 8.18 million square meters, with an original fixed assets value of 7.5 billion yuan, a cotton spinning capacity of 2.41 million spindles, and several enterprises with more than 10000 employees. With the maturity of urbanization and the emergence of more efficient alternative industries, these spindles are actually difficult to survive in the urban area of Shanghai.

With the deepening of industrial structure adjustment in central cities, the proportion of tertiary industry in the total economic volume is increasing, and the radiation function of central cities is becoming increasingly prominent. The evolution of urban industrial structure, on the one hand, requires the traditional manufacturing industry to withdraw and shrink; on the other hand, the urban industry needs to improve the technical level and realize the upgrading of industrial structure. In addition, the urban industry which adapts to the rapid changes of the market also has the living space.

New York's fashion industry is no longer booming

In the existing industrial structure of New York, although the proportion of manufacturing industry is not high, it still retains the typical urban industries such as clothing, printing and food. Among them, clothing processing accounts for about 1 / 3 of the total value-added and employment of the manufacturing industry, and mainly produces high-end brand and luxury brand clothing, which makes New York maintain the leading position of the global fashion industry.

Garment processing industry in New York is still attractive to investment. Garment processing was once one of the most representative manufacturing industries in New York, providing tens of thousands of jobs for New York for a long time.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the U.S. textile and clothing industry has undergone structural adjustment under the competitive pressure of China and other developing countries. The industrial development shows many characteristics, such as the differentiation of brand products, the miniaturization of enterprise scale, the flexibility of production technology and the liberalization of trade policy. At the same time, due to the globalization of industrial chain and the rapid development of offshore outsourcing, the scale of American domestic garment manufacturing industry has shrunk to a certain extent in the first 10 years of the new century, and the prosperity of New York garment manufacturing industry is no longer.

With the United States vigorously implementing the strategy of manufacturing return, New York clothing industry has shown more obvious signs of return. The data shows that in 2016, the investment in fixed assets of New York garment manufacturing industry reached more than 300 million US dollars, an increase of 5% compared with 2013; in 2017, the output value of the whole industry reached 12.5 billion US dollars, showing the first growth since 1998. American apparel companies, including Brooks brothers, American giant, and Karen Kane, have increased their share of "back to shore" local clothing manufacturing. The main reasons include rising overseas costs, better quality control, more flexible production organization and shorter delivery time. To a certain extent, these strategies make the U.S. clothing manufacturing industry have a greater competitive advantage in the field of high-end brands. (the author is a researcher of Huaxia Institute of happiness)

This article is published in the insight column of legal person in April 2021