Silk House: Suzhou Weaves A New Picture Of Textile Industry With "Embroidery Skills"

Suzhou is the famous "Silk City", with the only national advanced manufacturing cluster in the textile industry in China. The textile industry with a long history has laid the foundation of industry; An internationally renowned textile highland, leading the direction of industrial reform. In the textile industry, Suzhou has shifted from quantity expansion to both stabilizing the stock, optimizing the increment and improving the quality. It has taken the road of connotation improvement and intensive development, explored the long-term path of "liking the new without being tired of the old, being honest and innovative", and outlined the longitude and latitude of transformation and upgrading of traditional industries.

　　 Keep your feet firmly on the chassis

The textile industry is the pillar industry of the vast majority of counties with a GDP of 100 billion, which drives the direct employment population of more than 20 million, and is related to the fundamentals of economic development. In the first three quarters of 2024, the total profit of textile enterprises above designated size in China's textile industry increased by 10.3%.

Suzhou's textile industry has risen steadily, and its performance is also good. The industrial output value of the city increased by 6% in the first three quarters, which is one step closer to the goal of 300 billion yuan of industrial scale in 2025; The total import and export volume of the textile industry increased by 6.3%, and the total export value of Shengze Town, Wujiang, the largest production base of chemical fiber fabrics in China, reached a new high, with an increase of 21.8%. Recently, the national machinery and textile machinery industry headquarters of the ten billion level project was located in Suzhou, and the Jiangsu (Shengze) Textile Expo and the Textile and Clothing Brand Development Conference were opened successively.

As far as Suzhou is concerned, although the textile industry, compared with several leading industries, has a low total volume and a low proportion, and its growth is not dominant compared with emerging industries, it plays an irreplaceable role in ensuring economic security and protecting people's well-being. Wujiang and Changshu have the best competitiveness in the field of chemical fiber weaving and clothing. Hengli and Shenghong, two of the world's top 500 enterprises, are well-known. Industrial towns such as "Suzhou Embroidery Town", "Sweater Town", "Silk Town" and "Knitting Town" have great strength.

Changshu Garment City Market, which is famous nationwide, has more than 40000 households, 100000 employees and 15000 anchors. Shengze textile industry has gathered 300000 employees, which is the first to issue the minimum wage guideline in the country, guiding the reasonable increase of wages of spinners, winding workers, security workers and other major types of work.

　　 Have an overall mind to make up for weaknesses

Suzhou's manufacturing industry mainly produces "intermediate goods", and so does the textile industry. Under the influence of international competition, geopolitics and other factors, Suzhou's textile industry profits have been limited. It must optimize the layout, extend to the terminal, and take the initiative in the industrial chain. Faced with the "double pressure" of resource constraints and regional competition, Suzhou's textile industry has limited space for development, so it must make efforts inward and increase the stamina from green and low-carbon development.

There are many "hollowing out" problems in traditional industries, such as capacity transfer, brain drain and capital withdrawal, especially in the textile industry.

How to turn external dangers into opportunities? The key is to do our own thing well, strengthen the headquarters, radiate outward from the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake, and promote the restructuring of domestic and foreign resource distribution, and move towards the middle and high end of the value chain. The silk textile industry has experienced the process of "moving from the east to the west" and "moving from the east to the west", gradually forming a pattern of cocoon and silk raw material production, silk processing in the west, finishing in the east, especially in Suzhou, and design and manufacturing of terminal products. Many large textile factories in Suzhou have transferred their production lines to Suqian and other places, and most of the production orders in Huqiu wedding dress market have been handed over to Dingji Town, Lu'an City, Anhui Province, which has fully formed the development model of "headquarters+base". The three companies of Suxitong have jointly built a high-end textile cluster. How to work together to create a "magnetic pole" and enhance their voice and influence in the world also needs to be solved.

Enhance the competitiveness of the industrial market and consumer responsiveness by manufacturing branding and digitalization. Based on the solid foundation of "100 billion level enterprises, 100 billion level industries, 100 billion level markets" and more than 2500 silk textile enterprises, Suzhou has accelerated the building of a regional brand of "Shengze Weaving" to achieve high quality and high price of "head fabrics look at Shengze". Changshu Bosideng continued to polish the world's famous brands, and launched "windbreaker and down jacket" and other popular new products to achieve the company's performance against the trend. Suzhou learns from the experience of Shaoxing and other places to build a brain for chemical fiber weaving industry, makes good use of industrial Internet platforms such as Shenghong and Feiliu, and gives full play to the enabling role of intelligent transformation and digital transformation. The average labor productivity of many garment enterprises in Changshu has increased by 35%, the product manufacturing cycle has been shortened by 19%, and the enterprise's ability of "quick response to small orders" has been greatly improved. The order of 100 pieces of goods will be delivered in three days from the time of getting the order to the time of determining the production schedule.

China's clothing has sold well all over the world by virtue of its cost performance ratio, and cross-border e-commerce has become an important outlet for textile foreign trade. Suzhou actively embraces the world, seeks industrial transformation, and proposes the goal of reaching 150 billion yuan in cross-border e-commerce import and export by 2026. The assessment and evaluation of Suzhou Cross border E-commerce Comprehensive Pilot Zone has led the country for two consecutive years, landing important carriers such as Vipshop Suzhou Overseas Shopping Operation Center and Cainiao International Cross border E-commerce Platform. The textile industry has taken advantage of the wind. As a famous brand of key cross-border e-commerce in Jiangsu Province, Wujiang Taihu Snow has a cross-border sales volume of nearly 100 million yuan.

The total carbon emissions of the textile industry account for 10% of the global total emissions, which is the second largest pollution source after the oil industry. Developed economies represented by the EU have successively introduced relevant green rules, established and improved the sustainable evaluation and identification system of textile products, and set carbon tariffs. In order to share the dividends of the international market and show the quality of "advanced manufacturing industry", the textile industry must walk out of the green and low-carbon development road.

In response to the construction requirements of the Yangtze River Delta Ecological and Green Integration Demonstration Zone, Wujiang attaches importance to systematic promotion and comprehensive improvement, and explores to build a green low-carbon sustainable development demonstration zone for the textile industry. The textile circular economy industrial park, which has been planned for more than ten years, has been officially implemented recently, and high-end printing and dyeing projects with a total investment of 2.458 billion yuan have been launched. Shengze Town took the lead in releasing the carbon neutral vision of the textile industry cluster, innovatively launched the TextileCompass textile industry low-carbon transformation and financial innovation guide project, and built the carbon footprint management system standard of the textile and clothing industry.

　　 Look far ahead and climb the peak

Last year, China's Guochao economic market reached 2.05 trillion yuan, and the size of the "new Chinese style" clothing market represented by Suzhou jacquard fabrics has exceeded 100 billion yuan. The integration of textile industry with digital economy, future industry and cultural resources breeds new quality productivity.

Suzhou pays attention to the synergy and integration of industry, university and research, making two-way efforts in industrial and technological innovation, opening up the two channels of Ren and Du, and developing its textile hard core strength. Suzhou has national innovation carriers, such as the National Advanced Functional Fiber Innovation Center and the Modern Silk National Engineering Laboratory of Suzhou University. It has set up an intelligent fiber and wearable technology innovation consortium, and has unveiled the pilot tasks of comprehensive innovation and reform of the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Science and Technology. The Hengli Yangtze River Delta International New Material Industrial Base project, located in the Fenhu High tech Zone, Wujiang, with a total investment of about 12 billion yuan, is accelerating the efforts to tackle the "choke" problem and will put into production the world's broadest polyester film production line.

Suzhou Textile has two intangible cultural heritage items and two national agricultural heritage items. It has successfully inherited Jiangnan culture and enhanced the soft power of the city. Textile carries culture, and culture enables textile. In the benign interaction between humanities and economy, the "lining" of the textile industry's humanistic heritage and the "face" of the value level fly side by side. Suzhou Shangjiukai Silk Science, Technology and Culture Co., Ltd. creatively applies Song brocade fabrics to many fields such as bags, clothing, home textiles, handicrafts, etc., injecting unique oriental aesthetic elements into the fashion industry. In less than two years, the production capacity has fully expanded by 10 times, and the sales volume is estimated to reach 200 million yuan.

The textile industry Chenfeng Fashion Creative Industrial Park located in Kunshan is called "the dream factory of Chinese fashion creativity". It integrates Jiangnan culture with Chinese patterns, national fashion and contemporary aesthetics, and takes the lead in building a fashion creative industrial chain integrating talent training center, independent designer studio, brand headquarters base, live broadcast e-commerce platform and factory stores, The revenue reached 1.614 billion yuan. (Lu He)

(Source: Xinhua News Agency client)