Go global to win development space and share growth opportunities

By Shen Da

?In 2013, President Xi Jinping first proposed the“Belt and Road Initiative”; the First China Textile Industry Go Global Conference was held at the same year.

?In 2015, National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the document of “The vision and action to promote the construction of Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”;the Second China Textile Industry Go Global Conference was held at the same year.

?In May, 2017, Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation was held in Beijing; in March, China Textile Go Global Union was formally established; in September, the Third China Textile Industry Go Global Conference was held.

?During the five years since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the “Belt and Road Initiative” was continuously advanced. With the improvement of economic development, relevant policies and regulations, as well as infrastructure of overseas areas, especially the countries along the Belt and Road, the early textile enterprises has formed initial layout scale in the overseas. China Textile Industry Go Global Conference profoundly reflects the international layout of China’s textile industry and the building of a power country under the new situation.

?With the approaching of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, representatives from textile enterprises, the relevant government, organizations and clusters, as well as news media, and guests from overseas countries gathered in Nanjing in September, to make indepth exchanges and discussions on international cooperation.

?Gao Yong, Party Secretary and Secretary-general of China Nation Textile and Apparel Council, made a comprehensive interpretation of the situation and opportunities to go global faced by China’s textile enterprises.

Grasp the situation and share the opportunity

Looking back on the past five years, opening-up and common development have always been the national policies in China. In 2013,the national leaders proposed to build as Silk Road Economic Belt and twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road, namely, “Belt and Road Initiative”, which was a powerful response to the various challenges of the present age. China would uphold the concept of common destiny of mankind and continuously insisted on opening-up and common development. The construction of “Belt and Road Initiative” has always focused on development, to realize economic integration, interactive development, sharing fruits, as well as open, tolerant and inclusive globalization, by releasing the development potential of each country. After 2015, China has successively issued many top-level policy-oriented programmatic files, to guide the further integration into the world economy,the formation of a new opening pattern as well as the construction of a open economic power.

“Belt and Road Initiative” has offered a great opportunity for China’s textile industry to strengthen international cooperation. Since the issue of “The vision and action to promote the construction of Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road”, “Belt and Road Initiative” has won a positive response, support and participation from more than 100 countries and international organizations. It can be said that “Belt and Road Initiative” has become a reality form a concept, and a cooperative action from a blueprint.

For China’s textile industry, “Belt and Road Initiative” has pointed out the key investment areas. At present, Indo-China Peninsula was the capital-intensive area for the investment of China textile industry. In Africa,countries, like Ethiopia, also had huge potential to develop textile industry.

In recent years, despite there are multiple challenges for China’s textile industry, domestic development momenta are still abundant. On the one hand, China’s textile industry has the ability to make numerous advanced investment to increase high-quality and efficient production capacity. On the other hand, under the fierce competition, there are hundreds of thriving textile industrial clusters and specialized markets, all of which have risk resistance capacity and market vitality. In addition,China’s huge domestic consumer market has maintained rapid growth, which provides ample space for upgrading and sustainable development of the domestic textile industry.

To prudently promote international layout

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, the foreign direct investment of the textile industry has been significantly accelerated, with an average annual growth rate of 30.88%. The total amount of foreign investment in textile industry of 2015 and 2016, accounted for more than half of the total stock since 2013, and especially in 2016,the total amount reached 2.66 billion USD, up by 89.3%compared with the same period of last year.

Through the investigation in spring, we realized that the initiative consciousness of textile enterprises has significantly improved. Meanwhile, over the past two years, the overseas investment of China’s textile industry showed an expansion in breadth and width. For the overseas investment regions, the investment of production capacity was mainly based on Southeast Asian countries and Ethiopia has also become a hot spot for the investment of productivity layout.

For the global active integration of high-quality resources, main investment areas of raw material resources, high-end technology resources, brands resources and marketing channel resources were mainly the developed countries and several countries with rich raw material resources.

Based on the current situation, China’s textile industry will adhere to the positive and reliable principle of international distribution, and fully release the positive momentum of international layout. China National Textile and Apparel Council will work with all the representatives to promote the global layout of textile enterprises.