Textile industry is expected to enjoy steady development this year

On February 2， Institute of Industrial Economy， China National Textile and Apparel Council （CNTAC） issued a report on “Current Economic Operation and Tendency in Textile Industry”. The report showed that： Chinas textile industry stuck to deepening structural reform at supply side in 2017， attempting to solve all kinds of external risks. It kept development tendency of progress in stability and quality improvement in stability on the whole. Economic operation indexes realized positive growth and growth of some indexes was slightly accelerated compared with the same period in the previous year. Operating quality and efficiency were steadily improved and transformation & upgrading effect gradually came into being.

Growth of textile industry somewhat slowed down， but sales situations of domestic and international markets got warm again after cold status， which indicated continuous optimization and adjustment of industrial productivity and supply structure. According to data from National Bureau of Statistics， industrial added value of textile enterprises of above designated sizes in 2017 increased by 4.8% yea on year which was lower than growth rate in the same period of 2016 by 0.1%. Industrial export presented a steady rising tendency. According to Customs data， gross export amount of textile and clothing reached USD 275.51 billion in 2017 with 1.6% year-on-year growth rate which rose back by 8.8 percentages compared with that in the same period of the previous year. Domestic demand market continued to keep steady growth and network consumption still increased rapidly. Nationwide retail sales of clothing， shoes， knitwear and textiles in above-norm units increased by 7.8% year on year in 2017 and the growth rate increased by 0.8 percentage compared with the same period of the previous year. Nationwide online sales volume of clothing commodities above designated sizes enjoyed 20.3% year-onyear growth rate which was accelerated by 2.2 percentages compared with the same period of the previous year.

Operating quality of textile industry was basically sound with continuously increasing input into transformation and upgrading. In 2017， textile enterprises above designated sizes realized cumulative RMB 6，893.56 billion main business income with 4.2% year-on-year growth rate which grew by 0.1 percentage point compared with the previous year. Profit rate of sales in enterprises of above designated sizes was 5.5% which was higher than that in the same period of the last year by 0.2 percentage point； turnover rate of finished products was 20.8 times/year and total asset turnover was 1.5 times/ year， both of which maintained basically equal to those in the same period of the previous year； proportion of three expenses in finance， management， and operation was 6.5% which was slightly higher than that in the same period of the previous year by 0.1 percentage point. In steady operation status with favorable quality and efficiency， textile enterprises had stable confidence in investment on the whole. Fixed asset investment amount of projects above RMB 5 million within the whole industry completed RMB 1，350.73 billion with 5.2% year on year. Investment amount in eastern area increased by 7.9%， which was accelerated by 2.4 percentage points compared with the same period of the previous year， and investment amount occupied 87.2% of national investment increment. As there was little newly added productivity in eastern area， rapid investment growth indicated that enterprises were extremely active in inputting into transformation and upgrading.

In 2018， textile industry is expected to continue to keep steady development tendency and economic growth rate is anticipated to be basically equal to that in 2017. From an international scale， global economy presents continuous recovery， and economic growth may be accelerated slightly compared with 2017. Moreover， consumer confidence will be enhanced somewhat with benign economic tendency and stable price of bulk commodity will also contribute to production recovery. Its anticipated that export status in textile industry will be further improved compared with 2017. From a domestic scale， national economy will continue to maintain steady growth tendency which will provide domestic consumers with healthy and desired economic environment； sustainable promotion of “sanpin strategies” （degrees of variety richness， quality satisfaction and brand recognition） will facilitate textile enterprises to accelerate adjustment and elevation， continuously enrich product varieties， improve quality and increase brand added value so as to provide a larger space for domestic consumption of textile and clothing and dig potentials of domestic demand.

Meanwhile， textile industry is still facing many uncertain factors， and close attention should still be paid to all kinds of risk problems which should be handled. Pressure of high-cost enterprises is not relieved yet， and domestic prices of factors like electricity and labor force are still obviously higher than countries like Vietnam. Problem of difficult and expensive financing has not been effectively solved for a long time， and effect of “replace business tax with value-added tax” on tax reduction of textile enterprises is still limited. International market competition tends to be more intense. Shares of Chinas textile industry in traditional market still ran off in 2017. Shares in American， Japanese and European textile and clothing import markets declined by 0.4， 0.9 and 0.9 percentage point respectively compared with the same period of the previous year， and this tendency will be continued in 2018. Domestic environmental supervision measures tend to be stricter， leaving heavy burden on environmental protection input of textile enterprises. With production halt taking as the only supervision means in some areas， enterprise production and investment activities are restricted， which becomes the bottleneck constraint for steady development of the whole textile industry.

In 2018， textile industry will further promote structural reform at supply side according to the overall working keynote “seeking improvement in stability”. Moreover， it will accelerate transformation and upgrading， actively resolve all kinds of risks and contradictions and make attempt to ensure basically steady industrial operation with steadily improved development quality so that it can make deserved contributions to promotion of sustainable and healthy economic and social development.