Among the various initiatives of the Chinese textile and garment industry in 2023 include the starting of a dedicated freight train to ship cotton yarn from Xinjiang to various textile hubs in China.
The first train was started in February 2023, which carried cotton yarn from Xinjiang to Foshan. This train has reduced the transportation time from 12 to 8 days.
Textile and clothing exports returned to positive growth for the first time in March 2023, with a growth rate exceeding expectations.
In March, Chinese textile and apparel exports reached US $26.39 billion, up 20 percent year-on-year, higher than expected, while the month-on-month growth turned adverse to positive.
In the same month, Fuchun Dyeing and Weaving announced that it would invest Yuan 700 million to build a yarn dyeing project with an annual output of 110,000 tons.
On April 26, a batch of red yarn was produced using waterless dyeing technology, marking the launch of waterless dyeing with reactive dyes developed by Esquel Group and Yiwei Environment.
In July 2023, Guangdong Shantou International Textile City started construction with a planned total investment of Yuan 30.5 billion.
The total planned land area of the Textile City is 5,000 acres, with the first phase of construction being 2,000 acres. It will include constructing a global textile procurement center and a textile park.
In August 2023, Guangdong and Xinjiang officially signed a cooperation agreement on building a comprehensive partnership in the cotton textile industry.
The partnership is expected to strengthen the cotton textile and apparel industry chain further and optimise the cotton textile and apparel industry structure.
The full text of the ‘Actions for Building a Modern Textile Industrial System (2022-2035)’ was also released in August 2023.
Actions include textile technological innovation that promotes industry progress, textile fashion upgrading, and promoting green textile manufacturing.
The actions will establish and coordinate regional textile value chains. Specific actions like in-depth integrated development of digitizing the textile industry are also included.
The plan also supports building a solid textile human resources base for industry development with the final goal of having a modern textile industrial system across the country.
In September 2023, Guan County in Shandong Province won the title of ‘China’s Famous Cotton Textile City’ as the textile and garment industry is Guan County’s pillar industry.
It currently has 350 textile mills, of which 26 are above designated size, with more than 1.8 million spindles and an annual garment production capacity of 12 million pieces.
Products manufactured in the country are sold all over the country and exported to more than 40 countries and regions, such as Europe, North America, and Southeast Asia.
In November 2023, the Alar National Cotton and Cotton Yarn Product Quality Inspection and Testing Center was proposed to be established.
Again, in November, 11 new national quality inspection centers were officially established nationwide.
In December, a national cotton yarn trading center was inaugurated in Xinjiang, which will explore the setting up of a traceability system from cotton planting to clothing production.
The center will also establish a cotton yarn quality and brand certification system and provide trading and warehousing facilities for upstream and downstream producers in the industry.
