Autumn is a harvest season. Especially here in Shanghai, in October, every year, the fabrics suppliers and buyers could gain what they most wanted in this harvest season.
The China International Trade Fair for Apparel Fabrics and Accessories has celebrated its 15th birthday in Shanghai New International Expo Center during Oct. 20th - 24th, 2009 satisfactorily, exploding the charms and energy of the potential markets in China.
The Intertextile Shanghai 2009, organized by the Sub-Council of Textile Industry, CCPIT-Tex, Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd and the China Textile Information Centre, attracted more than 53,498 visitors from nearly 105 countries and regions (44,402 domestic visitors and 9,546 overseas visitors) to attend this fabrics feast, and also 2,400 enterprises from 21 countries to showcase their products in the 115,000 square meters exhibition area.
With such a satisfactory statistics, the Intertextile Shanghai 2009 could not help being considered as one of the biggest fabrics exhibition around the world, with the support from the Chinese textile and fashion industrial development as well as the booming markets with great potentials. Potential consumption market
Being an internationally exhibition, the overseas pavilions were one of the highlights during the Intertextile Shanghai each time. More and more foreign textile and fashion enterprises would like to join in such a party to showcase their latest products, such as the German Pavilion brought their fabrics with high-technology, the Italian Pavilion presented their detailed design, the Korean Pavilion exhibited their distinguished focuses on women's fabrics, not only to exhibit their industrial strength, but also to search for commercial opportunities in the attractive Chinese market.
Italian Trade Commission - I.C.E. organized the Italian Pavilion, composing of 48 best Italian fabric manufacturers, to provide a wide range of new products and solutions for the increasing needs of Chinese companies and consumers, as well as to introduce the Chinese
audience to the high-quality features and unique charm of fabrics made in Italy.
Besides, a Trend Area and a Seminar titled "NEW CONSTRUCTIONS" presented a viewing of the most creative fabrics produced by the exhibiting Italian companies for the autumn-winter 2010-2011 collection.
The Japan Pavilion set up in the "Creative Japan" area with 38 booths in over 138 square meter exhibition areas. The "JFW-JC in Shanghai' made its debut appearance during this fair to show the detailed Japan-made fabrics and also release the 2010 A/W fabrics trend with four theme concepts: "Scents of Privacy", "Scientific Aspiration", "Melodious Unevenness" and "Layered Beauty- West & East".
"China is one of textile giants around the world, and also the biggest textile and fashion consumption market as well as the biggest textile and garment producers, so that China has always been the focus of the global textile industries", Yang Zhaohua, Vice President of the Sub Council of Textile Industry, CCPIT, analyzed, "Due to the global financial crisis, the consumption market in the developed countries have been affected obviously. However, the textile and garment consumption in domestic Chinese markets represented an uptrend during these times, while the domestic demand contributed meaningfully to the textile and fashion industrial development significantly. Therefore, overseas textile industries turn their attention to the Chinese market, and China has become a potential consumption market for the global textile and fashion enterprises." Industrial development trend
As referring to the situation in last year, Zhang Xiaofeng, from one domestic fabrics enterprise from the city of Shishi, said: "everyday really like a nightmare for me." According to him, since last year, the export of his company met a sharp declined 30%. Whereas, after this September, the increasing market opportunities brought more and more confidence to him as well as to his company.
According to the Customs, in this September, the export of textiles and garments reached 16.751 billion USD, increasing by 1.055 billion USD comparing with last month and 6.72% up on a month-on-month basis. Of them, the export of garment and accessories arrived at 11.081 billion USD, down by 8.08% comparing with the same time of last year; however, the decrease margin began to diminish gradually.
During this exhibition, the exhibitors with innovational products would gain more attention among others; of course, they also could gain more orders obviously. According to Zhang Xiaofeng, this time, 20% of the products they exhibited were traditional, the other 80% were newly- developed creative products, aiming at sharing more markets comparing with other competitors.
Without doubt, innovation is a common consensus for most Chinese enterprises for development, especially after experiencing the global financial tsunami. In order to showcase the
newly research and developed innovation products, during this trade fair, a theme area titled "lnnoTex Space" was established: 27 innovation technologies, from 20 domestic and overseas R&D organizations, textile professional institutions, and enterprises, consisting of four regions (textile new material, textile processing technology, dyeing and finishing technology and textile treatment technique), together with nine promotional seminar, all of which provided a platform to present the charm of technical innovation.
As Yang Zhaohua expressed, in the past the textile enterprises in China used to care about the production and cost, nowadays, they began to focus on the product research and development, and their R&D ability have been improved significantly. According to the statistics, among the domestic exhibitors, only 30% still specialized in OEM, nearly 60% possessed the ability to do ODM, representing that the Chinese textile enterprises began to transform their traditional development mode into a market-oriented product innovation way gradually. What's more
Trend release usually would be another highlight for internationally fabrics exhibitions. Either visitors, or suppliers and buyers could gain some inspiration from the trend forecast for next seasons.
During the Intertextile Shanghai 2009, according to the exhibition district classification, the trend release areas were divided into menswear, womens wear, and casual wear & sports wear. Additionally, an accessories display zone showcased attendees how to properly embellish clothing designs with buttons, lace, zippers and much more.
The trend forum for A/W 2010-2011 included a preview of trends compiled by the Interstoff Asia Directions trend committee, as well as the "Fabrics China" trends by China's leading trend forecasters from the China Textile Information Centre
Furthermore, seminars focusing on fabric trends and innovations were also held alongside the eXhibition, presented by industry professinals from China and overseas. And the fair debuted its first international retailer/brand seminar sessions, hosted by a panel of international industry heavyweights, including representatives from Adidas, Hennes& Mauritz and Walmart.
"The show provides an ideal business platform for trade amongst industry professionals; and this year it will also be a major draw for attendees seeking an international platform to exchange business ideas and sustainable solutions with some of the world's leading brands and retailers," said Ms Wendy Wen, Director, Trade Fairs for Messe Frankfurt (HK) Ltd.
