China: 'Crisis! What crisis?' retort textile industrialists

By

Matthieu Guinebault

Published
Sep 18, 2015

Vice-President of the Chinese Textiles Chamber of Commerce (CCPIT-Tex), Xu Yingxin, commented on China's economic crisis that was regularly in the headlines this summer. According to the executive, while the country's economy is simply balancing itself out, the textile industry hasn't lost any of its drive and continues to expand.

This was Xu Yingxin's assessment as he visited the Texworld and Apparel Sourcing trade shows in Paris, the latter co-organised by Messe Frankfurt and CCPIT-Tex. Xu Yingxin explained that China faces changes and challenges, having reached an economic crossroads. "But, though we're moving from a fast growth period to one of greater stability, in the first semester the textile industry still recorded a 6-7% rise."

To support his statement, the CCPIT-Tex Vice-President cited numerous figures. In January-June 2015 the industry boosted its investment by 12.6%. The 5.4% decline in exports is explained by the sluggishness of European and Japanese markets, which didn't prevent the industry's profits from rising 5% on average.

"I must also point out that tech fabrics are performing very strongly," Xu Yingxin noted, mentioning a 13.3% sales rise and a 4% increase in profits in the first six months of 2015, which leaves room for faster growth.

On the distribution side, the Chinese manager wanted to quell the rumours of a drop in demand. Apparel and footwear sales are reported to have grown by 10.6% in the first semester. While online sales were up 28.7% in the same period.

"Our objective, now as before, is to continue to increase the quality of our manufacturing, to improve technology in our workshops, and to make key investments, chiefly in automated production," Xu Yingxin further stated. "We'd also like to feature more Chinese brands, this being one of our major development vectors. We already have a vast variety of brands, but Chinese businessmen have a dream: to venture abroad and establish themselves firmly on international markets."