(This brief information about industrial textile economy in China in 2019 is brand new as the most updated statistics for the national economy (Jan.-Dec.) in the year just gone by can be available the earliest in February, and the industry picks up what is related to its own sector of economy and works out an annual report to make it open to public, usually sometime in the late February or in the early March.)

 

The protection of ourselves against the risk of being infected has diverted the consumers’ eyes away from the traditional luxuries to a new concept of de-lux goods, masks and protective tissues and safety wears, etc., making the industrial textile sector come into spotlight in times of great needs, far more brilliant than fashion wears, and China’s technical textile industry plays an important role in mobilizing the member companies to resume production to respond to national call for synergizing all the efforts and resources to fight the coronavirus(COVID-19). You might be interested in understanding this particular sector of the whole textile industry in China in the days gone by and in the days to come. Here is the brief of the new annual report:

 

Production:

As driven by the rising demand for non-woven both at home and abroad, its total production reached 5.03 million tons, up by 9.9%, but the tyre cord fabric did not present such a pleasant picture as the withering automobiles industry delustered its supply chain, making the production of the cord fabric drop by 7.4% in growth rate to result in 623,000 tons in 2019.

 

Economic performance:

The year of 2019 witnessed 235.93 billion Yuan in business income, 1.2 percentage growth, but its profit went down by 4.3 percent with averaged profit/business income rate at 5.9%, 0.3 percentage point down as opposed to that of the year before. If we look into the sector-specific performance, there is a diversified picture in the fact that the tents and canvas got an uptick in gross profit rate and profit rate respectively by 1.5% and 0.5%; Rope, cordages and cables plummeted by 18.2%, while the belts and tyre cord fabric by 9.7% in profit gains. Moreover, the other industrial textiles, such as tech-textiles used in filter, geo-synthetics, safety protection, transportation and composite materials, curved up by 7.2% in profit rate based on its better gross profit rate at 16.1% level, taking a leading role in all the technical textile industry.

The non-woven sector finished with 2.9% growth in business income, and 3.8% drop in total profit, and 0.4 percentage point down in profit rate last year.

 

International Trade:

China shipped out $27.34 billion worth of technical textiles, marking 2.1% year-on-year growth as against 5.7% drop in importing goods worth $6.73 billion in this category. In the major markets, laminated fabrics or coated fabrics, non-woven and tents & canvas are ranked in the top three products in the export sheet, growing at 0.4%, 5.4% and 2.7% respectively in value terms. Of the top three, the non-woven was exported on a rise by 9.1%, amounting to 1.051 million tons in volume. Prominently, the one-off sanitary-purposed textiles continued to remain dynamic, registering 16% and 18.8% higher level in export value and volume than that seen in the previous year. Conclusively, it was the volume that counts most in pushing forward the export growth in China’s industrial textiles last year.

 

　　

In view of the main destinations, United States is the largest market where $3.7 billion worth of technical textiles from China were shipped to, sliding down by 9.1%, as was handicapped by the trade altercations between the two countries. On the other side of coin, the export to Vietnam outran Japan, up by 10.18%, making this neighbor country the second largest market while the shipment to Japan and South Korea stayed stable, somewhere it had been in value level in 2019 as compared with the year before. It is interesting to see that the countries along “Belt and Road Initiative” territory are rising to be the important driver for China’s technical textiles export, with $10.85 billion seen last year, at a growth rate of 7.1 percent, of which the non-woven ramped up to 16.7% in dollars and to 18.9% in weight.

 

Forecast:

What is in store for 2020? It is estimated the total economic performance for the industrial textile sector will turn out to be good, at a moderate growth rate in important indicators like production, sales and export for the whole year, but the first half will see a downslide, to some extent, because the factories have not got a full-house operation as the on-going tightened measures to prevent and control coronavirus in some areas are still in effect, making it difficult for all the workers come back to production lines. Optimistically, we see the light at the end of the dark tunnel.