CCPIT TEX: Establishing a new positioning for the industry
Feb 19, 2019 ｜ by
2018 marked the 40th anniversary of China’s adoption of the reform and opening-up policy. Over the past four decades, China’s economic construction had been booming, having made remarkable achievements. As an important part of China’s national economy, the textile industry kept on emancipating ideas, expanding, innovating and making huge contributions to China’s reform and opening-up to the outside world.
2018 was a year decisive to comprehensive implementation of the spirit of the 19th CPC National Congress. “Supply-front structural reform”, “modernized economic system”, “real economy”, “medium-and high-end consumption”, and “modern supply chain” — all these keywords released positive signals for China’s textile industry. There should be new development in the new era. However, seen from the annual industrial operating performance, “high-quality” development was undoubtedly an irresistible trend. In 2018, faced with a brand-new development environment, and acceleration of the industrial transformation and upgrade, the industrial operating quality was steadily on the improvement.
2018 also marked the 30th anniversary of the founding of the Sub-Council of Textile Industry, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT TEX). Benefiting from the fertile soil of 40 years of reform and opening-up, and relying on all-around and pioneering development of China’s textile industry, the CCPIT TEX committed itself to promoting trade exchange, economic and technological cooperation between China and other countries and regions in the world on textile and apparel by sticking to a pragmatic and steady work style. Meanwhile, the CCPIT TEX firmly believed that its service provided to enterprises and the industry would write a splendid chapter to the global textile industrial chain.
In 2018, under the leadership of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, the CCPIT TEX ensured the steady growth momentum of textile exhibitions either at home or abroad in accordance with the exhibition organization thinking of professionalism, industrialization, market-orientation, branding and internationalization. This greatly empowered the replacement of old energies by new energies, and also gave full play to the new positioning of the industry in the new era. The China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance Secretary of the CCPIT TEX also organized a series of activities, and fully displayed its role as the bridge among the government, professional institutions and industrial enterprises by building the international production capacity platform for textile enterprises and accelerating the long-term win-win cooperation of countries along the “Belt & Road” on production capacity.
Creating the influence of internationalization – Forming an army of domestic exhibit brands
As the global economy was making a slow recovery and the Chinese government issued policies to stabilize its economic growth, the textile and apparel export in 2018 took a turn for the better via continuous stabilization, which stepped into the zone of steady development and resumed its growth after two consecutive years of drop. Then, what did Chinese textile enterprises have done to embrace the new round of test on the domestic an international market? The latest products, production technologies and designs exhibited by Chinese textile exhibitions in 2018 demonstrated a brand-new image of the Chinese textile industry in the new era.
In 2018, CCPIT TEX sponsored 12 domestic specialized exhibitions, covering the whole industrial chain, including yarns, fabrics and accessories, textile products for industrial use, spinning machines, knitting machines, apparels and home textiles. The exhibition area totaled at more than 100 million square meters. Among them, the fabrics and accessories exhibition, textile machinery exhibition, home textile exhibition, and apparel exhibition ranked on the top of global exhibitions in terms of the position, scale and brand influence. An army of internationalized brand exhibitions with the far-reaching influence was formed.
Various specialized exhibitions provided the textile industry with trade platforms full of opportunities. These platforms integrated technological exchange, market expansion, international cooperation, trend release, transformation and upgrade to better serve traders with quality resources, and empowered China’s textile industry to head towards the technological, fashionable and green development. Every year, these specialized exhibitions are important moments to the global textile industry, which gather batches of the most leading enterprises from the textile industry to compete with each other. One after another new textile product made by the new technology and equipped with the new performance appears on these exhibitions. Similarly, one after another story of business cooperation starts and comes to a full conclusion here.
As a leader of the domestic textile specialized exhibitions, the CCPIT TEX continued with its efforts to guide enterprises to seek innovational improvement and breed competitive advantages for brands. Activities, such as “Fashion Trend Release Area”, “Creative Design Area” and “Designers’ Competition”, set up by exhibitions attached great importance to guiding of fashion trends and stimulation of the industrial circles to constantly enrich and upgrade their proprietary designs, turning original design no longer a shortage of China’s textile industry. In the quality reform from “manufacturing” to “quality-oriented manufacturing”, the CCPIT TEX applied innovation outcomes of different layers to the whole industry through the “Maker Space,” “Innovative Product/Technology Exhibition Area,” and so on at an attempt to improve the technological content of textile products. In inspiring more innovation efforts, the CCPIT TEX emphasized more on creative efforts based on the essence of the Chinese civilization. “China Textile Intangible Cultural Heritage Exhibition” and “Living Concept Exhibition Area” both aimed at leading fashion design to inject new blood in China’s textile industry.
In 2018, the core at the development of China’s textile industry was reflected as consumption upgrade and demand change from “quantitative” demand to “qualitative” demand, and to personalization, diversification and differentiation of demand. That China’s textile industry grasped new changes of consumption upgrade constituted an important aspect to promote supply-front reform and was critical to high-quality development of the industry. In 2018, more and more textile enterprises demonstrated a growing maturity and professionalism in marketing, channel development and branding. Most importantly, many enterprises realized the importance of precise positioning to effective follow-up input.
In 2018, textile exhibitions remained in the forefront of the industry. Take the International Trade Fair for Apparel Fabrics and Accessories for example. The popular Trade Fair was made up of seven exhibition halls, representing fabrics for formal dress, shirt lining, jeans, fabrics for leisure wear, fabrics for fashionable women’s wear, diverse design, underwear/swimsuit fabrics, accessories, functional/sportwear fabrics, etc. The fashion trend exhibition area could be found in different exhibition halls, and was also divided into different categories, including men’s wear, women’s wear, leisure wear, accessories, etc. Many surface material enterprises were fond of launching their new products on this platform. So far, the International Trade Fair for Apparel Fabrics and Accessories of Intertextile has been a professional exhibition largest in scale, highest in level, and widest in coverage among global exhibitions of the same kind.
Besides, the scale of the “ITMA Asia + CITME” held in October 2018 set a record high. Around 1,733 home textile enterprises from 28 countries and regions in the world, including China, Germany, Italy and Switzerland were attracted by the exhibition, of which more than 1,200 were from Mainland China and around 500 were overseas exhibitors. The overall exhibition scale exceeded 180,000 square meters. Under the volatile international environment and the steady development stage of the textile industry, a plenty of exhibitors pointed out that the exhibition was a huge success in terms of technological exchange, trade negotiations, etc.
In order to improve the exhibition participation and attending experience of various exhibitors and audiences, the sponsor made great efforts to achieve an overall service improvement in every detail. In addition to exchanging ideas with each other about textile R&D and marketing onsite, exhibitors could also visit the fashion trend exhibition area, various professional forums, and seminars organized on the same date to get informed of the latest fashion information and to provide their R&D activities with diverse thinking.
Exhibitors confessed that they established contacts with purchasers of international brands, who were out of reach through other channels. Their demand brought new inspirations to enterprises’ product R&D and channel layout. In response to the coexistence of opportunities and challenges, Chinese textile products integrating “made in China” and “designed in China” exist not only a key carrier of the global fashion industry’s fashion trends, but also an important driving force of industrial economy at home and abroad. At the same time, the specialized textile exhibitions are a critical gateway for the domestic textile industry, shouldering irreplacable responsibilities in the industry.
Internal and external connection – Launch of the overseas “Through Train” for the Chinese textile enterprises
Apart from domestic exhibitions holding the palm, the CCPIT TEX subsequently held 11 overseas exhibitions from the east hemisphere to the west hemisphere, from the south to the north, including the United States, France, Brazil, South Africa and Bangladesh, in line with the development thinking of “gaining a foothold on the domestic market and laying out the global business”. Several overseas markets formed an internal circulation and finished the global layout of Chinese textile exhibitions.
In 2018, the CCPIIT TEX kept on playing the role of bridge and bond, deepening the mutual understanding, trust and benefits between China and the overseas textile circles. In promoting the regional trade, the industrial confidence was conveyed. One after another high-quality product, one after another proprietary brand and one after another innovative technology not only represent the appearance of “made in China” on the world stage, but also become a symbol of “China’s Quality” and “Created in China” in the heart of many consumers in the world. Innumerous Chinese textile enterprises have started writing a new chapter of global expansion on this platform.
The China Textile & Apparel Trade Show (New York) proceeds from the industrial linkage, focused on the East American market, and creates the specialized industrial chain purchase exhibitions. The China Textile & Apparel Trade Show (Paris), an exhibition designed for the launch of the “Proprietary Brand Export Growth Action Plan” headed by the Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, has become the largest textile and apparel specialized purchase platform of Europe. It follows strict exhibitor selection standards and radiates towards the Europe-wide sales terminals. Meanwhile, the Trade Show is synchronized with the TEXWORLD to achieve resource sharing. The GOTEX International Textile and Apparel Purchase Exhibition in St. Paul in Brazil gives full play to China’s supply chain advantages based on breakthroughs of trade barriers, and demonstrates a strong industrial complementariness. This platform pursues a win-win cooperation between the Chinese side and the Brazilian side. The Dhaka International Yarn & Fabric Show (DIFS), known as the global apparel production center is committed to production capacity transfer and improvement of brand added-value. The China Premium Textile & Apparel Trade Show South Africa is based in the railway engine, South Africa, of the African consumption market and relies on policy advantages of BRICS at an attempt to play a radiating role in relevant trade of surrounding countries.
In 2018, the China Textile & Apparel Trade Show (New York), China Textile & Apparel Trade Show (Paris), China Premium Textile & Apparel Trade Show, and GOTEX — all these overseas textile exhibitions abroad were blooming and achieved fruitful outcomes. A large batch of leading textile enterprises successfully put their sales network in place and entered the mainstream sales market. Many small- and medium-sized enterprises developed a stable client group based on this platform, continuously receiving orders and embarking on the track of sound development.
Ceaseless pace—“Going Global” and in-depth participation in “Belt and Road”
2018 marked the fifth year since the proposal of the Belt and Road Initiative. Activities revolving around “going global” in China’s textile industry kept popping up. The China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Alliance Secretary affiliated to CCPIT TEX even organized a series of activities this year, such as subsequently organized multiple overseas trips, trade shows in major countries, investment recommendations, etc. At the same time, the Belt & Road international layout and production capacity cooperation projects entrusted by relevant departments and ministries were completed. Through constant promotion of the communication mechanism and the communication platform construction, international exchange and cooperation were actively organized and deepened. The business circles were formed to integrated industrial forces to promote the new competitive advantages of China’s textile industry in the international market and to facilitate international layout of the textile industry and enterprises’ “going global”.
As a bellwether of the textile industry’s international production capacity cooperation promotion, the CCPIT TEX has never shirked responsibility of deeply participating in the textile industry in the “Belt & Road” construction, serving the textile enterprises’ establishment of the international production capacity cooperation platforms, and promoting long-term win-win cooperation among countries along the “Belt & Road” on the production capacity of textile enterprises.
In 2018, the China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance left its traces in Israel, a country with multiple religious cultures and a promising prospect of textiles, Indonesia and Malaysia, both with a complete textile industry, Ethiopia with outstanding cost advantage and constantly improving infrastructure, Egypt, an important global destination of cotton production, Uzbekistan, a major country on the “Silk Road Economic Belt”, Bangladesh, the second largest textile product exporter in the world just behind China, and Pakistan, the largest investment destination of Chinese enterprises in South Asia. The alliance organized the Q3 satisfactory apparel enterprises’ in-depth exchange and the United States cotton planting in-depth survey journey.
Currently, the pace of Chinese textile enterprises’ “going global” becomes increasingly steady. It has been an irresistible trend for Chinese textile enterprises to join the “Belt & Road” construction to promote the globalized layout of industries. China’s textile industry is seeking progress among steady development for its international production capacity layout.
On September 27th, 2018, the China Textile International Production Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance Board of Directors Meeting was held in Shanghai. The Meeting summarized the latest achievements of the industry’s “going global” as well as alliance services, analyzed the current development status, exchanged ideas on hotspot issues and difficulties facing the overseas investment purchase and acquisition, and put forward key points of work for the next step of the Alliance. Since the establishment of the Alliance, pioneering and backbone enterprises committed to the international layout of China’s textile fashion industry have joined it. So far, the Alliance has around 100 members, which, in addition to enterprises, also include national industrial organizations, textile and apparel associations in key provinces (such as Jiangsu, Shandong, Guangdong and Liaoning), and units related to internationalization of the industry. All of them are very representative.
Based on the current achievements and looking into future prospects, the China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance will be devoted to promoting friendly exchange, cooperation and resource sharing among alliance members, forming a periodical exchange and visit mechanism among members. Besides, the Alliance will build a well-functioning work contact mechanism with domestic policy departments, financial institutions and professional service agencies, government departments, industrial parks and textile fashion business associations in some key countries. Additionally, the alliance members will enhance their survey into international demands for a more targeted service organization.
In 2019, the China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance will keep forging ahead. Countries in the Central and East Europe, including Israel, Jordan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Hungary, and Czech Republic, European textile and apparel trade gathering grounds, including Italy and Germany, Central American regions, such as Mexico and Cuba, as well as Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Turkey, Greek, Egypt, India and Bangladesh will become major investigation spots for Chinese textile enterprises’ “going global.”
In the future, China’s textile industry will still maintain its sound development momentum in China. The international layout of China’s textile industry should vigorously support China’s construction into a textile superpower, and seek a sound interaction with the industry’s transformation and upgrade at home. By sticking to win-win cooperation, and steady progress, the China Textile International Production Capacity Cooperation Enterprises’ Alliance will undertake its new mission in the “Belt & Road” construction of China’s textile industry, and embark on a new journey.
In retrospect of 2018, the CCPIT TEX had made great contributions to industrial layout, technological progress, brand construction and product development. In 2019, there will still be many opportunities and challenges lying ahead of China’s textile industry, and the CCPIT TEX will still adhere to the concept of “innovation, coordination, green, openness, and sharing” to facilitate the transformation of China’s textile industry from high-speed development to high-quality development.
