Although the Chinese textile industrial production and investment began to see an uptrend gradually, especially coping with the global financial crisis, the export still kept a downturn slightly. However, the city of Shishi, in 2008, reached an industrial output of 227.5 billion Yuan, realizing an annual increase of19.9%, represented itself as a pioneer for the national textile and apparel industrial development.
During the 15th China International Trade Fair for Apparel Fabrics and Accessories, held in Shanghai during Oct. 20th-23rd, the City of Shishi integrated its exhibitors as the industrial cluster pavilion for the first time:43 outstanding fabrics. and accessories enterprises, in 1600 square meter exhibition areas, displaying their products and showcasing their industrial characteristics impressively.
Located in the southeast coast of Fujian Province with a long coastal line around it, Shishi is an experimental zone of the province as well as a window to Taiwan Strait. Enjoying the fame of China's Famous Town of Casual Wear and Fabrics China Casual Wear Trend Release Platform, the city of Shishi is keen to become a world-class leisure garment center.
Alongside the process of globalization, the textile and garment manufacturing sector in China is forming industry clusters to stay competitive. As the China's Famous Town of Casual Wear, Shishi's textile and garment industry has become a pillar of the city's economy and a driver of future economic growth. Complete industrial chain.
Since 1980, the city of Shishi has already established a complete textile and garment industrial chain in this20 years, oriented with the garment processing, composing of various aspects of man-made fiber, textiles, dyeing and finishing, fabrics, accessories, garment production, product R&D, marketing and soon, with obvious advantages of the industrial cluster.
According to the statistics, to date, there are 5,000 textile and garment enterprises in the city of Shishi, with an industrial output of37.5 billion Yuan in 2008. Besides, several international well-known garment brands were attracted to purchase raw material and do business here in Shishi, leading to nearly half of the total production were exported into the overseas markets.
Furthermore, with an international garment logistic center in the city of Shishi - Shishi Fashion City (with a total investment of RMB 1.5 billion Yuan), which has become one of top ten garment wholesale markets in China, and of top ten innovation markets in China, since it started business in 2005, Shishi has become a key step in the global industrial chain of garment-processing trade, and one of the five multinational garment-purchasing bases in China.
According to the introduction, the fabrics enterprises in Shishi are famous for their quickly market reaction ability and high-level production research and development ability:1000 textile fabrics enterprises could reach an output of 300,000 tons of knitted fabrics, and 600 million meters of shuttle less fabrics.
"Among these enterprises, ten are certificated by the National Textile Development Center as the pioneer plants. For example, in our Shishi pavilion this time, during this 15th Intertextile exhibition, the Inoval Group is entitled as the "China's Development Base of Casual Fabric" by the National Textiles Development Center, the Gaiqi Group is authorized as the 'China T-Shirt R&D Center', and so on." Said Huang Nan kang (the Acting Mayor of the city of Shishi), "those enterprises actively cooperated with domestic and overseas research and development organizations, meanwhile, they focus on the fashion, technology as well as the technique level of the products, which have improved their industrial production markedly."
Besides, there are more than 70 dyeing and finishing enterprises and600 accessories companies in Shishi, with an industrial output of 4.35 billion Yuan, and five billion Yuan, respectively. Moreover, in recent years, Shishi garment enterprises have been setting up retail chains, franchising and e-commerce, integrating wholesale and retail sales in one city. Apart from setting up large-scale sourcing centers, Shishi's fabrics enterprises have also opened more than 1100 exclusive stores, alliance stores and franchised stores around China, and shipped abroad their products into the markets in Europe, America, Mid-east, Taiwan, Hong Kong and so on.
Huang Nankang expressed: "the complete industrial chain is a traditionala dvantage, as well as a core competitiveness of the textile and apparel industry in the City of Shishi. In the future, Shishi would go on enhancing the integration of industrial chain, in order to improve the competitiveness of the industrial clusters in Shishi significantly. "Success with Innovation
Experiencing 20 years innovation and development, the casual wear fabrics manufactured in Shishi have already ranked top among other producers around China, occupying half of the total sales of casual wear fabrics in China, as Huang Nankang introduced: "in the past, we won with the advantage of production scales; then, in the future, in order to preserve the leading role comparing with others and improve ourselves, what we focus on mostly is the innovation."
For example, the Inoval Group, cooperated with National Textile Development Center, focused on the R&D and production of cotton ,polyester cotton, and cotton blended high-level fabrics, and so on. The XiangXing Group established a research and development foundation for cold-weather gear especially, and also achieved a high-level in the R&D of fabrics with conformability, functional textiles as well as casual wear fabrics. Besides, several enterprises united together to release more than3000 newly developed casual wear fabrics annually and promoted into the markets, leading a trend in domestic casual wear markets and expanding quickly in the overseas markets at the same time.
Recently, the city of Shishi emerged groups of brands industrial clusters: 33 Chinese well-known marks, two Chinese top brands, 15national inspection-free product,one Chinese export famous brand,and 59 well-known marks in Fujian gprovince. With famous casual wear brands in domestic market, such as Sept wolves, E denbo, Cab been, Shishi city gradually forms a textile and garment industrial clusters, characterizing with 'Casual, Fashion, Brands, Personality', and occupy ingone fourth of the national garment market share.
Furthermore, the comprehensive fabrics markets also attracted more than 100 national-wide large scaled textile manufacturers to establish their factories in Shishi. And The Strait Textiles and Clothing Fair (Casual Wear Expo), held on April 18th every year, provide a platform for the textile and apparel enterprises in Shishi and Fujian province to exhibit their charm.
"After the global textile industry entered the post-quota era, the competition of fabrics industry and market begin to transform into a form of regional competition. As for the city of Shishi, we should rely on the complete industrial chain and scaled industrial production, and enhance the information system, in order to improve our selvesto a new level with stronger competitiveness." Huang Nankang expected confidently.
