Empowering the modern textile sector

Beijing, China – 26 February, 2024 – Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen: Good afternoon!

The plan for the year begins with spring. I am very happy to gather with you at the China Textile Roundtable Forum amidst the vitality and new ideas to discuss new qualities and new forces for the high-quality development of the industry. First of all, on behalf of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, I would like to welcome all the experts, scholars, industry colleagues, and friends from the media who are attending the meeting. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Department of Consumer Products of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and other relevant government departments for their long-term care and guidance, and to Beijing Fashion Holdings Co., Ltd. and other partners for their long-term care and guidance. Thank you for your support!

When presiding over the 11th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that high-quality development requires the guidance of new productivity theory, and new quality productivity has been formed in practice and has demonstrated a strong driving force for high-quality development. Supporting force requires us to summarize and generalize theoretically to guide new development practices. The theme of today's meeting focuses on empowering the construction of a modern textile industrial system with new quality productivity. It is a very important discussion and is of great significance for clarifying ideas, building consensus, building confidence, and opening up the situation on the new journey. I would like to take this opportunity to share some insights with you.

A new stage of high-quality development, with steady progress in the construction of a modern textile industrial system
Make progress while maintaining stability, and consolidate the industrial foundation with high quality
In 2023, the industry withstood the pressure of reality and solidly promoted high-quality development around expanding domestic demand, optimizing structure, boosting confidence, preventing and defusing risks, and maintained an upward trend in the complex external environment. The total fiber processing volume of China's textile industry will exceed 60 million tons in 2021, and will remain stable at more than 60 million tons in 2023 despite weak external demand. In 2023, the operating income of textile enterprises above designated size will decrease slightly by 0.8% year-on-year, and the decline will be slightly narrower than in 2022; total profits will increase by 7.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate will rebound significantly by 32 percentage points from 2022, turning from negative to positive during the year. Industry market entities continue to grow, vitality is effectively stimulated, and endogenous power continues to be released. In 2023, a total of 6 textile companies will be among the Fortune Global 500, and 4 textile companies will be selected into the World Brand Laboratory's "Top 500 World Brands"; 402 textile companies will be recognized as "Specialized, Special and New" Little Giant Enterprises and Single champion company. Large and medium-sized enterprises coordinate division of labor, integrate and consolidate links, provide precise matching and efficient linkage.

Domestic sales of textiles and clothing are picking up. In 2023, the retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats, and knitted textiles in units above designated size across the country increased by 12.9% year-on-year, and the growth rate rebounded significantly by 19.4 percentage points from 2022. The overall retail scale exceeded the pre-epidemic level; the retail sales of online wear products increased by 10.8% year-on-year. The growth rate will rebound by 7.3 percentage points compared with 2022. my country's per capita fiber consumption has reached about 26 kilograms, and the consumption quantity and structure are equivalent to the level of moderately developed countries with a per capita GDP of 20,000 to 30,000 US dollars. National style and trend, comprehensive health products and independent brands are booming and gaining momentum. The textile industry has a stable, high-quality and efficient supply system that matches my country's huge population and people's needs for a better life, ensuring the stable development of the national economy and stable employment.

Innovation-led, high-level implementation to improve quality and efficiency
The innovation system of the textile industry continues to improve, and the innovation vitality of market entities has steadily increased. Currently, there are 2 national technology innovation centers and 102 national enterprise technology centers in the industry. Textile enterprises’ R&D investment intensity continues to increase, and their scientific and technological innovation capabilities are effectively guaranteed.

Digital innovation is deepening. 
The textile industry is the first to implement the integration of digital and real, and indicators such as smart manufacturing readiness rate, production equipment digitization rate, and digital equipment networking rate are all ahead of the national manufacturing average; new models such as network collaborative manufacturing, mass customization, small orders, quick response and flexible manufacturing have been spawned New business formats.

Green innovation shows real results. 
Adhere to the concept of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, actively promote the optimization of energy structure, the research and development and application of full-process green manufacturing technology, and the construction of recycling and reuse systems. Key indicators such as energy consumption, water consumption intensity and major pollutant emissions have steadily declined by 2023. The output of recycled chemical fibers exceeds 5 million tons, and a full life cycle green and low-carbon industrial system has been initially established.

Integrated innovation is outstanding. 
Science and technology such as gene editing, biological breeding, and biomanufacturing are evolving at an accelerated pace, changing the supply methods and application space of materials. Scenario-driven product innovation and business format innovation, textiles continue to achieve more diversified and deeper applications in the fields of comprehensive health, comprehensive home furnishing, aviation, construction, and shipping. Advanced manufacturing is deeply integrated with national culture to empower design, create experiences, and shape brands.

Openness and integration, promoting international cooperation at a high level
my country's textile industry is deeply integrated into international industrial cooperation and is an important guarantee for the smooth operation of the global textile supply chain. In 2023, facing a complex external environment, the industry's total exports will still reach US$310.46 billion, which is at a historically high level and has ranked first in the world for 30 consecutive years. Among them, chemical fiber exports reached 6.5 million tons, a record high. The industry continues to deeply explore traditional markets and continuously expands into emerging markets. The market layout is more diversified, and exports to countries such as Turkey and Russia have increased steadily.

The textile industry is moving from the globalization of products and production capacity to the globalization of brands and capital. In the ten years since the implementation of the “Belt and Road” initiative, the textile industry has taken the lead in directly investing US$6 billion in “Belt and Road” countries, creating many iconic demonstration projects such as the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in Cambodia. The industry has formed a wealth of innovative practices, especially with key regions such as Southeast Asia and Africa, from trade cooperation and production capacity cooperation to supply chain co-construction cooperation. It has not only built a global production network system with efficient internal and external collaboration, but also promoted investment purposes. Domestic industrial development and upgrading promote shared interests and connected destiny through integrated transnational supply chains.

In global development, the industry has always adhered to people-oriented and protected human rights through industrial development. Use industrial development to serve South-South and North-South cooperation, enhance the effectiveness, fairness, balance and coordination of the development of the global textile industry, and effectively promote the realization of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Intensive linkage and high-standard spatial layout improvement
The advantages of agglomeration and efficient layout of the textile industry continue to be strengthened. 
Most of China's counties with a GDP of over 100 billion regard the textile and apparel industry as a pillar industry. Modern textile industry clusters drive new urbanization and comprehensive rural revitalization with new industrialization, playing a key role in promoting the integrated development of urban and rural areas. The 210 industrial clusters jointly built by China Textile Federation on a nationwide pilot basis cover more than 200,000 textile enterprises, of which more than 90% are small, medium and micro enterprises, employing more than 7 million people. Keqiao, Shengze, Changshu, Humen, Haining, etc. have developed into hundreds of billions of industrial clusters with world influence.

The textile industry is an important driving force for cross-regional collaboration. 
The industry has a long industrial chain, high correlation, easy entry, and great potential. It is an effective way to bridge the development potential gap in a wide range of fields and at multiple levels. The balanced linkage between the east and the west and the complementarity between the upper and lower basins are the characteristics and advantages of the modern textile industry system. The textile industry has emerged in central provinces such as Anhui, Jiangxi, and Hubei, and has formed supply chain interactive cooperation with coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Zhejiang to create a core industry cluster in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Based on high-quality resources and opening up the channel to the west, Xinjiang strives to improve quality and upgrade. Textile and clothing exports will increase by 28% year-on-year in 2023, and the development space of the textile and clothing industry is further opening up. Southwest border provinces such as Guangxi and Yunnan face ASEAN, and the development of the textile industry presents a new pattern.

New productive forces are an inevitable choice for modernizing the industrial system to promote stability.
The most important thing to promote modernization is to develop highly developed productive forces. New productivity plays a leading role in innovation. It breaks away from the traditional economic growth mode and productivity development path. It has the characteristics of high technology, high efficiency and high quality, and is an advanced productivity quality that conforms to the new development concept. This new productivity theory clarifies the direction of promoting high-quality development and provides fundamental guidance for building a modern industrial system.

As a manufacturing sector with global comparative advantages, the textile industry is in a critical period of transition to a more advanced form and a more reasonable structure. Focusing on the strategic direction of building a modern textile industrial system, developing new productive forces is the intrinsic requirement and fundamental driving force for promoting high-quality development of the industry.

New productivity is the focus of enhancing scale and system advantages
Maintaining industrial integrity and realizing the unity of economies of scale and economies of scope in diversified and multi-level development are the top priorities of the modern textile industry system. For a large country with a population of 1.4 billion, it is impossible to rely entirely on external supply to meet basic fiber consumption needs. The scale and system advantages of the manufacturing industry are crucial.

From the perspective of the external environment, the global supply chain pattern has undergone profound adjustments. On the one hand, manufacturing industries in developed countries are returning to China, and on the other hand, emerging countries are accelerating the pace of industrial relocation. While the global division of labor is deepening, the layout of the global textile supply chain is also showing a trend of decentralization and regional reconstruction. In 2023, my country's proportion of textile and clothing imports from the United States, the European Union, and Japan will be 24%, 29.7%, and 52.2% respectively, which are 17.2, 12.8, and 26.3 percentage points lower than the peak around 2010; Vietnam and Bangladesh China, as well as countries such as Mexico and Turkey, are gradually replacing my country's original market share. The trend of "near-shore" and "friendly-shore" layout is obvious, and the industry is facing a complex competitive situation.

From the perspective of the industry itself, structural problems are intertwined with cyclical contradictions, and the profit margin development space is under pressure. The development stage, size, value contribution, and structural characteristics of the industry determine that compared with other countries, the construction of China's textile modernization industrial system faces greater resource and environmental constraints, cost pressure, and transformation needs. New productivity is the key to breaking through real bottlenecks.

Guided by the new characteristics of new quality productivity, a new input-output relationship will be formed. 
The textile industry must actively lay out new tracks for high-quality development, tap the vitality and potential of industrial development, and become a new breakthrough for accumulation and improvement of development resilience.

Use new materials to extend new spaces. Continuously develop the categories and applications of new fiber materials, textile composite materials and industrial finished products.

Replace new manufacturing with new elements. Digital technology, data elements and advanced textile manufacturing are deeply integrated to promote the upgrading of manufacturing technology and manufacturing models, and stabilize the supply capacity and industrial system foundation of the textile industry.

Support new development with new business formats. Accelerate integration with the bio-economy and green economy, reshape the entire life cycle from raw materials to products, from manufacturing to recycling, and break through the bottlenecks of raw materials and other industries.

New productivity is the entry point for promoting industrial transformation and independent innovation
Currently, a new technological revolution is coming. Large-span and deep integration innovation accelerates the disappearance of industrial boundaries and the extension of application scenarios, opening up space for the development of emerging industries and leading industries; mutual integration and penetration between industries drives traditional industries to accelerate productivity changes. With the blessing of "big data + big computing power + strong algorithms", generative AI is developing towards universalization, generalization and depth, changing the paradigm of innovation and creation at an unprecedented speed, scale and scope, and building new productivity and production relations. . Green economy has become an innovative practice guided by ideas and a strategic choice forced by reality. Global factor resources are gathering towards the green economy at an exponential rate.

Revolutionary breakthroughs in technology give rise to new productive forces, trigger the conversion of power and kinetic energy, and bring about innovation in the field. They are an important support for the development of the modern textile industry system.
After years of development, my country's textile industry has fully entered the stage of independent innovation from "following" to "running alongside and leading". The innovation and development of the industry is entering a no-man's land. In high-end, cutting-edge textile technology, artificial intelligence applications, and cross-border Integrating innovation and other fields, the pace of innovation is accelerating. Relying on a complete advanced manufacturing industry chain and modern service value chain system, the entire textile industry system has the possibility of extending a new development track, opening up new application space, and nurturing new industries in the future.

By cultivating new productive forces, activating the advantages of latecomers with forward-looking original technologies, and seizing the commanding heights at the forefront, the textile industry will win the future initiative in the transformation. Accumulate practical understanding of new productivity, accelerate the in-depth integration of the industry with the digital economy and green economy, capture emerging technologies, and proactively lay out future industries.

New productivity is the support point for integrating into global development and international cooperation.
At present, all countries and nations have been involved in the world development system, and globalization is a historical trend. The granularity of international division of labor has changed from inter-industry division of labor and intra-industry division of labor to intra-product division of labor and factor division of labor. Global value chain cooperation has become the main form and inevitable choice of the textile industry.

In recent years, the division of labor in the global textile industry has continued to deepen. From 2011 to 2023, my country's fabric and chemical fiber exports increased by 88.8% and 2.4 times respectively. The trade in intermediate products has become more active, reflecting the deepening integration of the industrial chain and supply chain. In 2022, my country will account for 36.1% of the world's total textile and apparel exports, making it a core participant in the international textile supply chain. How to maintain and improve the industry's position in the global value chain is an urgent issue for the industry to solve.

As global regional free trade cooperation becomes more and more extensive, security factors and trust mechanisms are taking a more prominent position in the dynamic balance between efficiency and security, and participation in international division of labor and cooperation is also facing increasingly severe risks and challenges. How to enhance the irreplaceability of my country's textile industry and continue to expand the market space is a practical challenge facing the industry.

Cultivate and develop new productive forces, promote self-reliance and self-reliance in high-level science and technology, and independently master core, high-end, and cutting-edge technologies; promote the formation of more differentiated division of labor space with different regions, which can better promote the joint construction and cooperation of regional textile supply chains and enhance industrial integration. The depth and breadth of the global industrial system.

New productivity is the key point to implement people-oriented and people’s livelihood first
The main contradiction in our society has been transformed into the contradiction between the people's growing needs for a better life and unbalanced and inadequate development. The modern textile industry system takes as its starting point and goal to meet the people's growing needs for a better life, and pays more attention to issues such as "good or not", "excellent", and "fine or not".

With the steady advancement of common prosperity, the formation of ultra-large-scale and diversified markets is accelerating. The new outlook on life and culture has transformed into a new outlook on fashion and consumption, showing the trend of functional consumption and emotional consumption, "rational" and "casual" coexisting. In the era of extreme cost-effectiveness, replacement and white-label products have become important options for rational consumption. The development of textile manufacturing brands, supply chain brands, and regional brands faces important opportunities. Segmented vertical markets such as the silver economy, health economy, self-pleasant economy, and sustainable economy are constantly emerging, and market segments and category innovations are actively developing. Accelerating the formation and development of new productive forces will help promote industrial transformation and upgrading, improve supply quality, meet diversified and high-end consumer demands, create a high-quality ecological environment, use the power of science and technology to improve people's lives, and allow all people to share the fruits of development.

Employment is the greatest livelihood of the people, and workers are the core of productivity. Workers need a good working environment and more valuable work content. Cultivate and develop new productive forces, lead by new production factors, and form a new industrial cycle, which will create new jobs that are more compatible with modern population structure and employment preferences. The new development brought about by new productivity is the support for the textile industry to create good employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, better fulfill social responsibilities, and achieve ESG development.

Promote the leap forward of the modern industrial system with new productive forces first established and then broken
The Central Economic Work Conference listed "leading the construction of a modern industrial system with scientific and technological innovation" as the first of nine key tasks in 2024, proposing that scientific and technological innovation should be used to promote industrial innovation, especially disruptive technologies and cutting-edge technologies to spawn new industries and new industries. model, new momentum, and the development of new productive forces. The industry must unify its understanding and actions into the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee, adhere to the principle of seeking progress while maintaining stability, promoting stability through advancement, establishing first and then breaking, promote the accelerated development of new quality productivity, and build a modern textile industrial system with high quality.

Anchoring technology and strengthening innovation
Strengthen scientific and technological innovation. 
Scientific and technological innovation can give birth to new industries, new models, and new driving forces, and is a core element in developing new productive forces. We must focus on strengthening basic research and original innovation, focusing on policy resources and high-quality industry elements, and solving "stuck neck" technical problems in key areas of the textile industry. Optimize and give full play to the role of the innovation system of industry-university-research collaboration and industrial chain collaboration, improve the efficiency and quality of scientific and technological innovation, enable original and disruptive scientific and technological innovation results to emerge, and cultivate new momentum for the development of new quality productivity. Strengthen the innovation of high-performance, multi-functional, lightweight and flexible fiber materials, and strengthen the development of new processes such as intelligent manufacturing and bio-manufacturing.

Strengthen industrial innovation. 
Promote industrial upgrading and future industrial development by developing new productive forces. Promote textile manufacturing links to accelerate high-end, intelligent, and green upgrades, strengthen quality support and standard guidance, and enhance advanced manufacturing capabilities. Improve new infrastructure in industries such as the industrial Internet and big data centers, and further promote intelligent manufacturing; build green factories and explore new models of green manufacturing. Enhance industrial design capabilities, promote research and release of fashion trends, improve product innovation levels, and improve the design innovation ecology. Promote the integration and innovation of general high-tech, strategic emerging industries and the textile industry, and promote the integrated development of the textile industry and leading industries such as biomanufacturing, commercial aerospace, and low-altitude economy.

Activate elements and smooth circulation
In accordance with the requirements for developing new productive forces, we must develop the market for innovation factors such as science and technology, finance, technology, and data, promote the deep integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, and capital chain, and create a better innovation ecosystem. Smooth the virtuous cycle of education, technology, and talents, stimulate the vitality of production factors such as labor, knowledge, technology, management, capital, and data, innovate the allocation of production factors, and allow all types of advanced and high-quality production factors to flow smoothly to the development of new productivity.

Strengthen the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. 
Seize the unique advantages of the ultra-large-scale market and accelerate the transformation and application of innovative results. Strengthen the leading role of enterprises in innovation activities, promote the opening of innovation platforms for key enterprises, and build an industry basic innovation database and transformation docking platform.

Strengthen data value development. 
Relying on the industry's multi-level industrial Internet, big data centers, etc., we will accumulate data resources; improve data management capabilities; introduce and cultivate professional and credible data service entities, enrich data application scenarios, and activate the potential of data elements.

Revitalize the role of capital markets. 
Make good use of the country's financial policies that focus on supporting technological innovation, green transformation, inclusive small and micro businesses, and the digital economy to create a virtuous cycle of "technology-industry-finance"; deepen cooperation between industry and finance, and promote industry venture capital and equity investment.

Improve the talent support mechanism. 
Strengthen the "trinity" integrated development of education, science and technology, and talents, and create a modern human resources system with excellent quality, appropriate total quantity, optimized structure, and reasonable distribution.

Optimize the market and explore potential
The market is the most important incubator, accelerator and amplifier for industrial technological innovation. It is necessary to give full play to the advantages of the unified domestic market, enrich application scenarios, condense development directions according to market demand, and promote accelerated iterative upgrades of new technologies and new products.

Stimulate demand potential and cultivate new momentum. 
Cultivate and expand terminal consumption, vigorously develop digital consumption, green consumption, and healthy consumption, and actively create new areas of textile and clothing consumption in the fields of smart home, entertainment and tourism, sports, and domestic "trendy products". With the help of the platform economy, we can create new consumption scenarios; deepen the development of lower-tier markets and activate the consumption vitality of counties and villages.

Promote cultural blessing and strengthen new values. 
Promote the integration of cultural and creative content with industries and products, promote the innovative integration and creative transformation of excellent traditional cultural carriers such as intangible cultural heritage handicrafts and Chinese time-honored brands with new productive forces, and become fertile ground for the growth of independent original brands.

Expand effective investment and strengthen the fundamentals. 
Focus on the orderly layout of innovative carrier construction for new productive forces, make full use of government support policies in the fields of key core technology research, new infrastructure, energy conservation, emission reduction and carbon reduction, rationally expand investment, and drive investment through industrial transformation and upgrading and the development of new productive forces A mutually reinforcing cycle with consumption.

Green development and fulfilling responsibilities
Accelerate low-carbon transformation. 
New productivity itself is green productivity. It is necessary to strengthen resource conservation, intensive recycling and efficient utilization, and actively and steadily promote carbon peak and carbon neutrality. Strengthen green innovation, build a green supply chain system, and promote the formation of a green and low-carbon lifestyle. Deeply build a recycling system for waste textile and clothing resources, accelerate the research and development and application of key technologies for high-value recycling and reuse, and develop a textile circular economy. Optimize the industry’s green development service system and enrich service tools and models. Promote the construction and improvement of textile green and low-carbon industry standards and certification systems. Establish and continue to improve the industry's ESG information disclosure system, ESG performance evaluation system and ESG capability improvement support system.

Promote responsible development. 
As advanced productive forces, new-quality productive forces must incorporate social responsibility into the production system, value system, and innovation system. We must adhere to the priority orientation of employment and have a strong sense of responsibility for maintaining employment stability. Continue to improve the working environment, protect labor rights, and enable workers to achieve decent work, safe production, and all-round development. Promote the construction of the integrity system, adhere to the spirit of contract, maintain fair market order, and form a good market ecosystem that encourages business entities to be brave in innovation and responsibility.

Optimize layout and coordinate development
Integrating into the international and domestic circulation, new productive forces must develop in the new development pattern. It is necessary to optimize the industrial layout with both efficiency and safety in mind, and balance the relationship between in-situ upgrades, domestic transfers and international resource allocation. While expanding high-level opening up to the outside world and creating a good international environment for the development of new productive forces, we will also strengthen the rooting and integrity of high-quality and emerging industrial chains and strengthen the construction of the national strategic hinterland.

Strengthen regional collaborative layout. 
Fully combine the superior resources of each region and build a spatial pattern with unique characteristics, orderly competition and differentiated development based on the main functional positioning. The eastern region focuses on high-end textile manufacturing and high-level independent research and development capabilities, and leads the layout of new productivity with technological innovation. The central and western regions focus on transforming regional advantages, policy advantages, and resource advantages into industrial advantages, and participate in the development layout of new productive forces by building a cross-regional connected industrial cooperation system. Some provinces in the west can also create a new path of "overtaking in corners" with the support of abundant renewable energy and policies to calculate data from the east to the west.

Strengthen cluster economy.
Give full play to the role of industrial clusters as organizational carriers, focus on cultivating and developing new productive forces, and build advanced textile manufacturing clusters, digital industry clusters, green industry clusters, and emerging industry clusters. Guide industrial clusters to strengthen specialization, differentiation, and characteristic development, continuously improve the cluster public service system, and promote the coupling of the distribution of innovative elements with the development of the cluster's main business and business formats. Seize the opportunity of local policies to support emerging industries such as biomanufacturing and new energy storage, promote the grafting and matching of textile and related industries, and cultivate new industrial agglomerations that are innovative, green, and forward-looking.

A stone can be sharpened to turn dullness into sharpness. If your heart is determined, the road will not be far. In the grand history of Chinese modernization, the construction of a modern textile industrial system is a beautiful chapter. Be encouraged in time, time waits for no one. Let us seize the opportunity to make progress and establish ourselves in the changing times and trends, empower the construction of a modern textile industrial system with new quality productivity, open up a new situation in development, and create new heights in our career.