The 8th Annual Meeting of China

The 8th Annual Meeting of China Textile Round Table Forum Co-sponsored by Oerlikon Textile Meeting Subject: Surmount the Difficulties and Seek For Future Development

Wang Tiankai, Member of the National Committee of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and President of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, Sun Huaibin, Deputy Secretary-General of the China National Textile and Apparel Council, Yao Jingyuan, Special Researcher of the Counselor’s Office of the State Council and former Chief Economist of the National Bureau of Statistics, Zhang Yansheng, Researcher and Director of the Foreign Economic Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission, Fan Jianping, Researcher and Chief Economist of the National Information Center, Gao Fang, Vice President and Secretary-General of China Cotton Association, Zhu Beina, President of the China Cotton Textile Association, Yu Xiuling, Director of the Clean Production Center of the Ministry of National Environmental Protection, Wen Zongguo, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Environmental of Tsinghua University, and representatives from other domestic and foreign enterprises have attended the forum.

In 2012, China was faced with the most sever situations in recent years: shrinking international market, grim exporting situation, slow growth of domestic needs, rising cost of business operation, and the great pressure that textile enterprises were faced with in industrial transformation and upgrade. This forum, with the subject “Surmount the difficulties and seek for future development”, is aimed to explore and discuss the options that China’s textile industry has to survive through this new circumstance.

The forum was presided by Sun Huaibin. As usual, the forum was divided into three sections: a brief opening, three keynote reports, and three interactive dialogues on specific topics.

Wang Tiankai gave a brief speech on behalf of the authorities of the sponsor group. He firstly thanked all participants for their presence at the forum, and then gave positive affirmation of the achievements that China Textile Round Table Forum has made during the past eight years. Wang believes that the Textile Industry has entered into a new historical stage of development; He said: “We need to accelerate the pace to make necessary adjustments, transformation and upgrading.”

Yao Jingyuan talked about the Macroeconomic Situation and Relevant Policy of 2013. By comparing the statistics of the energy industry of coal, electricity, oil, etc. in 2012 with that of the previous years, Yao presented to the audience a comprehensive macroeconomic situation, and analyzed from the perspec-tives of exportation, investment, consumption, etc. the main reasons that lead to the downturn of China’s economy. Yao believed that the economic situation of this year is more favorable than that of last year. He said according to the requirements of the Central Economic Work Conference, we should make use of the driving forces of both investment and consumption, investment more into the livelihood areas, and support the development of the real economy industries like the textile industry, maintaining the economy growth at a moderate speed and at the same time committed to the reform.

Gao Yong, Vice President and Secretary-General of China National Textile and Apparel Council, talked about the analysis and countermeasures of the economic situation of textile industry in 2013. Gao briefly reviewed the overall situation of the textile industry in 2012 and analyzed and evaluated the industrial economic situation accordingly. He pointed out that in the past year of 2012, although the growth rate of the textile industry slowed down, it still made benefit on the whole, and the exportation realized a slight increase. Gao predicated that the industrial trend of 2013 is going to be steady on the whole, with low growth at first and then followed by increases later. He said: “Due to the facts that the cost of production factors is comparatively high in China, there is a great gap between the price of the domestic cotton and that of the foreign cotton, our country’s international competitiveness declines, etc., the exportation will still encounter with difficult situations; while with the growth of domestic needs and signs of recovery on the international market, we can expect the exportation to increase in the second half of 2013.” At last, Gao emphasizes that China must adjust the industrial structure according to the requirements of the Twelfth Five Year Plan and its specifications on the Textile Industry to adapt to the changes on the overseas market.

Stefan Kroß, President of the Chemical Fiber Division of Oerlikon Textile, on behalf of the entire Oerlikon Textile Group, gave a speech about “How to Realize Sustainable Development of China’s Textile Industry.” He pointed out that the production capacity of China in manmade fiber production now takes up 60% of the world chemical fiber production capacity, while it is still faced with the challenges of rising costs of raw materials and labors. China’s chemical fiber shall development in the direction of high quality and efficiency in the future, and trends like this also provide basis and opportunity for Oerlikon Textile Group. The Manmade Fibers Division of Oerlikon Textile emphasizes on developing green products (e-save) and technologies featuring high efficiency, low energy consumption and low emission according to the needs of customers, especially the Chinese customers. Early in the year of 2007, the Manmade Fibers Division has developed the newest WINGS POY winding machine, of which the sale amount has exceeded more ten thousand by now. Compared with the previous system, the new winding machine has a better performance, takes up less space, produces less silk waste, and consumes less energy with even lower labor cost. He said: “It is because Oerlikon continuously adjusts its strategies according to situations of China’s textile industry with active innovation spirit. This is why Oerlikon can realize sustainable development on China’s market, the largest market in the world.” What’s more, Kroß also mentioned that as Oerlikon Group is making material adjustment to strip the Natural Fiber and Components Division. Within the three interactive dialogues the experts talked about the following three topics:

• Topic One: The Situations on the Domestic and International Markets and the Countermeasures.
• Topic Two: Cotton Market and Policy.
• Topic Three: Environment and Ecologic Construction.

In each topic discussion, the authorities and experts discussed with each other on the hot topics of changes of situations on the domestic and international markets and the countermeasures, the domestic sales situation, situation of the raw materials, the need to transform the textile industry, new turning points appearing in the textile industry, strategies for textile enterprises to cope with the changes, environment and ecologic construction, etc. opening the thinking space full of challenges for the development of textile industry in the new year.

It was an open discussion and for the first time the experts were asking the government and the authori-ties to focus on energy topics in the textile industry.