Dear readers:

April is the springtime when the southern part of China is immersed in a sea of flowers, but the north—erners just started to see the hues of the season with buddings here and there growing to blossoms in spite of some grounds still covered with scattered snow melting into drops of water. Spring is emerging in her real charms of a fascinating feel and touch in April even though the Chinese lunar calendar renders an official be—ginning of the Spring as the start of February this year.

The natural view is picturesque and thrilling, it does not necessarily reflect the mood of the scenario where we look out into another landscape. Is the world economic scenery such a thriller? In April, the World Bank Group published its research report entitled "World Economic Outlook", clearly pointing out that the baseline is for growth to fall from 3.4 percent in 2022 to 2.8 percent in 2023, where the advanced economies are expected to see an especially pronounced growth slowdown, from 2.7 percent in 2022 to 1.3 percent in 2023.

Whereas, China’s economy assumes a pleasurable luster to the Spring season against the global gloomy backdrop in its aspects of the tertiary industry production index that achieves a rise by 13.5 percent in April alone with the averaged growth by 8.5 percent from January to April, and the industrial output added value that curves up by 5.6 percent in the month of April, and by 3.6 percent on the averaged increase in the first four months, and the domestic retails of the consumption goods in the whole society that have arrived at 18.4 percent growth level in April, and at 8.5 percent averaged over the past four months, and the fixed—asset in—vestment that comes up to a bit over two trillion U.S. dollars from January to April as per the current exchange rate(1:7.24) for 14.7482 trillion RMB(Chinese currency Yuan), marked by 4.7 percent growth, and the export that witnesses a double—digit growth by 16.8 percent in the single April and by 8.5 percent up over the same period of the first four months last year.

The economic landscape of the textile industry is not so enthralling or spellbinding as that in Mother Na—ture in this floral season, and it has not revitalized itself to the measured level of growth in many important indicators even though the downfall in production, export and profit level is coming narrower to the exception of the fixed—asset investment that has fallen at a larger margin in the previous four months on average than in the first quarter. In the upbeat situation, every cloud has a silver lining. The textiles and clothing retail en—joys a fast growth, creditable much to the resilient and quick recovery of domestic economy with a booming retail demand. If we take a look at the garment manufacturing sector where its domestic retail has registered a growth level by 16.6 percent from January to April, and the latter alone has rocketed by 39.9 percent, and up by 10.4 percent in online retail in the past four months, we see a remarkable vigor and vitality against the withering shopping sales during the Pandemic period. In its export performance, the first four months sees an outbound shipment of clothes worth $48.075 billion, up by 2.5 percent over the corresponding period last year, still staying strong as an export pillar despite the impacts of production relocations overseas that have taken place in recent years.

While Mother Nature is at her best in this season, we are trying to make the best of the conditions to ful—fill the expectations against the headwind, keeping moving ahead.