Bucking the trend, it grew by 9.6%!According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs, China's textile and garment exports totaled US $291.22 billion in 2020, with a year-on-year growth of 9.6%.

This report card has been hard earned and impressive.

Supported by the policy of "stabilizing foreign trade", the export of China's textile and garment industry withstood the huge impact brought by the epidemic, among which the textile industry has achieved growth for nine consecutive months since April, while the garment industry has reversed since August.

Textile and garment exports have increased for five consecutive months, directly driving the overall export growth of the country's goods trade by 1 percentage point and becoming an important driving force for the growth of the country's goods trade.

The stable release of export competitiveness is attributed to the continuous improvement of consumer demand in overseas markets, but the return of orders, and more importantly, the huge "magnetic attraction" formed by the stable industrial chain and supply chain system of the domestic textile industry, also reflects from one side the industrial practice of China's textile industry to make deep adjustment and improve the quality of development.

In 2020, how will China's textile and garment industry operate in the face of the epidemic challenge?

As an important industry to improve people's livelihood, how can the textile and garment industry achieve high-quality development as it enters the "14th Five-Year" period?

Recently, the 15th annual China Textile Roundtable Forum hosted by China National Textile Industry Council was held in Beijing. More than 100 experts and scholars from the academia and industry gathered together to discuss the future development path of the textile and garment industry.

The domestic demand turns warm, the export counterattack, the textile industry competitiveness enhances obviously

"In recent years, the overall development of China's textile industry is in a stage of deep adjustment and transformation, focusing on improving the quality of development. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, the textile industry has also been impacted."

At the forum, China National Textile Industry Council Party Secretary and Secretary General Gao Yong said, but with the steady progress of the resumption of work and production in China, the textile industry's various operating indicators continue to pick up, China's textile industry in the second half of the domestic market recovery trend is obvious.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the year-on-year decline in retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats, needles and textiles for units above designated size has narrowed from more than 30% at the beginning of the year to 7.9% in the first November.

The improvement in domestic demand will be felt most clearly by businesses.

Offline, rushed to Shanghai to participate in the domestic surface accessories exhibition, online, participated in the e-commerce activities for the first time, directly facing the consumer groups...

Liu Peiyi, executive deputy general manager of jiudai Textile Co., Ltd., has a busy schedule recently.

"From the 'behind the scenes' of the supply chain to the' front of the stage 'of the sales end, the company's revenue quickly recovered and realized growth against the trend."

Liu Peiyi said.

The domestic demand market picks up at the same time, the export market heats up sharply.

Drived by the export of anti-epidemic materials such as masks and protective clothing, the export competitiveness of China's textiles has been released steadily, and the export scale is close to the historical best level set by the industry in 2014.

Not only is the total amount of exports increasing, but the export structure is also adjusting.

"Textile exports exceeded clothing exports for the first time, accounting for 52.8 percent of total exports, causing a change in the textile industry's export structure."

Gao Yong said that it should be noted that in the second half of the year, with the restart of overseas economy, China's textile industry system is perfect and the stability of supply chain operation advantages appear, garment exports gradually improved, by the end of the year, the decline in exports had narrowed to 6.4%.

Gao Yong introduced that looking back at the "13th Five Year Plan", China's textile industry is commendable.

From the scale, China's total fiber processing accounted for about 50% of the world, chemical fiber production accounted for about 70%, the total export accounted for about one-third;

From the perspective of comprehensive ability, China's textile industry chain has generally reached the international advanced or leading level in terms of category variety, output quality, production efficiency and independent technology and equipment.

According to the Chinese Academy of Engineering released shortly before "facing 2035 to promote manufacturing power construction strategy research" report shows that the textile industry has become one of the five industries in the world in the advanced position of our country.

Sun Ruizhe, president of China Textile Industry Council, commented that textile technology innovation has entered a new stage of "following, running and leading" coexisting with "following".

To achieve high-quality development, we still need to make innovation stronger, manufacturing greener and products better

Looking ahead to the 14th Five-Year Plan period, in the face of overall slowing demand and increasing uncertainties in international trade, how should the textile industry cope with the challenges and continuously move towards high-quality development?

"We must face up to the industry gap with developed countries, especially China's textile industry in the forefront of independent innovation, brand and fashion soft power, green development leading ability, international supply chain control ability and other aspects of the gap."

"Gao Yong said, to strengthen the advantages of the manufacturing system, solve the industrial chain supply chain short board, in the new pattern of a new situation, to achieve new development.

-- Scientific and technological innovation will become stronger. We must not only make products, but also make them better and better.

"In the next step, the textile industry should solve the problem from manufacturing to fine manufacturing and finally to good manufacturing, and truly realize precision manufacturing, green manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing."

Shan Zhongde, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and president of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, believes that on the one hand, we should continue to promote the research and development of intelligent high-quality textile equipment, improve the efficiency, performance and digital level, and truly realize automatic perception, intelligent decision-making and automatic execution.

On the other hand, it also actively develops service-oriented textile manufacturing and promotes personalized customization production mode, including remote design innovation center, so as to realize the production of personalized products by industrial mass means and expand market demand.

In fact, in recent years, there have been many textile enterprises deep cultivation of cutting-edge technology innovation.

Not long ago, in the sixth China industrial awards conference, Anhui Huamao Textile Company Limited's new spinning intelligent renovation project won the prize, with its developed with a number of independent intellectual property rights of the intelligent manufacturing technology, spinning its pioneering "airflow in removing impurity, flexible opening" technology, can not only improve the efficiency of cotton impurity removal, and can reduce the cotton fiber damage in the process of opening, greatly improve the production efficiency.

-- Green manufacturing means recycling waste products and making the production process energy saving and carbon reduction.

"In the past, the textile industry only cared about terminal pollution control, and the next step is to promote whole-process control, targeted and precise pollution control."

Wen Zongguo, a professor at Tsinghua University's School of Environment, believes that adopting cleaner production processes and equipment, especially the substitution of green chemicals, should be an important direction for the sustainable development of the textile industry in the future.

Wen Zongguo pointed out that in terms of recycling waste textiles, China's textile industry still has a low recycling rate compared to developed countries. The next step is to take measures such as extending producer responsibility to make enterprises responsible not only for the quality of their products, but also for their recycling and waste disposal.

-- Textile products are more "superior", strengthen the research and development of fine processing technology of the whole industrial chain, and develop the market with high-end products.

According to Zhang Yansheng, chief researcher at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, the future textile industry should tell the story of science, technology, innovation and talent, and improve the division of labor status of the global industrial chain and value chain through the development of high-end textile products.

"To be specific, it is necessary to integrate new materials, new technologies and the upgrading trend of domestic consumption, develop high-end textile products with high comfort, easy care, antibacterial health care and other multi-functions, constantly improve the quality and added value of science and technology, expand the application space of materials, so as to open up new market demand.