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Technical Textile Industry Become One of the Pillar Industries of China's Textile Industry

2020/2/24

The textile industry is a traditional pillar industry of the national economy and an important people's livelihood industry. It is also an industry with obvious international competitive advantages, which plays an important role in booming markets, expanding exports, absorbing employment, increasing farmers' income, and promoting urbanization. Since 2018, the textile machinery industry has further promoted industrial upgrading, and has made progress in high production efficiency, low energy consumption, digitization, and intelligent development. Technical innovation and structural adjustment have supported the industry's stable growth. In 2019, the overall operation quality has been good, and the industry operation growth rate has picked up.

In recent years, relevant state ministries and commissions have issued a series of policies and regulations to support the development of the textile industry. These policies provide clear guidance on industrial development goals, growth rates, industry specifications, key development directions and technical means, and downstream applications, which are conducive to promoting the overall development.

List of Policies and Regulations for the Development of China's Textile Industry
No.	Name	Issuing Department	Issuing Date	Detail
1	Textile Industry Restructuring and Revitalization Plan	the State Council	2009.4.24	The plan proposed to promote the development and application of technical textiles, and accelerated the industrialization of new technical textiles; accelerated the application of advanced processes such as needlepunch, spunlace, and spunbond and high-performance fibers in the production of environmentally-friendly filtering textiles, and the proportion of new materials increased from 20% to 50%; speeded up application and development of medical textile materials and products such as surgical gowns, isolating gowns; promote spunbond, meltblown, spunlace, and composite nonwoven technologies, and made breakthrough in the industrialization of anti-microbial, anti-blood, anti-alcohol surgical gowns, and isolation clothing.
2	Nonwovens Base Fabric for Synthetic Leather (GB/T24248-2009)	General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People‘s Republic of China & China National Standardization Management Committee	2009.6.19	This standard was applied to various nonwovens made of chemical fibers via needlepunch or spunlace. It specified the classification, technical requirements, test methods, inspection rules, label, packaging, transportation and storage of nonwovens for synthetic leather.
3	Sanitary Spunlace Nonwovens (FZ/T64012-2013)	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	2013.7.22	The standard specified the classification, technical requirements, test methods, inspection rules, packaging, storage and transportation and label of sanitary spunlace nonwovens.
4	Hot-air Nonwovens (FZ/T64046-2014)	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	2014.7.9	The standard was mainly applicable to hot-air nonwovens made of low melting point composite fibers, with a unit area mass of 15-100g /m².
5	Made in China 2025	the State Council	2015.5.8	Support the transformation of key industries, high-end products, and key links. Guide enterprises to adopt advanced applicable technologies. Optimize product structures. Comprehensively improve design, manufacturing, process, and management levels, and promote the development of industries such as steel, petrochemicals, construction machinery, light industry, and textiles towards high-end the value chain.
6	Announcement on Adjusting Import Tariffs on Certain Consumer Goods	Ministry of Finance & General Administration of Customs	2015.5.1	Since June 1, 2015, the import tariff rate for skincare products, suits, diapers, and other daily necessities and consumer goods has reduced by provisional tax rates, of which the import tariff rate for diapers reduced significantly from 7.5%.
7	Guiding Opinions on the Development of the Technical Textile Industry during the 13^thFive-Year Plan Period (2016-2020)	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology & National Development and Reform Commission	2016.12.1	From 2016 to 2020, the average industrial added value of enterprises above designated size will grow about 9%, and the total fiber processing of the textile industry will grow by about 8%. And labor productivity will increase by more than 8%. By 2020, it is expected to reach 33% processing of the technical textile fibers. Textiles for environmental protection, textiles for geotechnical construction, and bio-based functional textiles aim to reach advanced levels around the world. Cultivate 5-8 industrial clusters with an annual output of CNY 10 billion, and form 3-5 industrial textile enterprise groups with international influence.
8	Scientific and Technological Progress of the Textile Industry in 13^th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020)	China National Textile and Apparel Council	2016.9.1	Twelve nonwovens processing technologies were included in the science and technology research and industrialization projects for textile industry in "13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-2020)", including two-component spunbond-spunlace ultra-fine fiber synthetic leather fabrics and its production technology, processing technology and equipment of PLA spunbonded nonwoven material, processing technology of high-speed wet-laid nonwoven fabrics. It put forward development goals that learn key technologies in the key areas of technical textile manufacturing, and make the fiber consumption proportion of technical textile reached 33%. Strengthened the development and application of technical textiles in the field of hygiene, filtration, safe protection, and geotechnical construction. In the field of filter materials, focused on improving the quality and stability of high-performance fiber products. Increased the application ratio of high-performance filter materials, providing the supporting application technology of filter materials in downstream industries such as steel, power generation, metallurgy, and cement. Made sure over 20% of promotion of high-efficiency filter materials application. In the field of medical protection, promoted the use of medical protective textiles that meet the requirements for antibacterial properties, and with good moisture permeability and comfortability. Achieved more than 20% of utilization rate of disposable surgical gowns, masks and other hygiene nonwovens materials in the domestic medical and health system. Promoted high-performance and low-cost flame-resistant fabrics, and new-type fabrics such as ecological composite geotextiles, etc. By 2020, the number of ecological geotextiles will reach 100 million square meters per year.
9	Textile Industry Development Plan (2016-2020)	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	2016.9.20	Expanded the application of technical textiles and treat it as a key development area. Increased the application of new fiber materials in the field of technical textiles. Improved the application level of two-component spunbond thermal bonding nonwoven technology, high-speed wet-laid nonwoven technology, and promoted the industrialization of multi-axial warp knitting, three-dimensional weaving, and multi-layer composite technology. Expanded the use of technical textiles in key areas such as environmental protection and ecological restoration, medical and health dependence, emergency public safety, construction and transportation, aerospace, and new materials.
10	Guidance for the Development of Key Industrial Common Technologies (2017)	Ministry of Industry and Information Technology	2017.10.18	Three key technologies proposed/revised by the CNTAC, i.e., "Key technologies for High-performance Nonwovens Processing", "Processing Technologies for High-performance Fiber of Warp-knitted Reinforced Composite Materials", and "Key technologies for High-performance Thermal Protection Textiles", were included in the guide as the common priority technologies.
11	Guidance Catalogue for Industrial Structure Adjustment (2019 Edition)	NDRC (National Development and Reform Commission)	2019.10.1	Encouraged the production of functional technical textiles by adopting new technologies such as nonwovens, knitting, and weaving, and multi-process composite and long-term finishing.

Technical textiles refer to the textiles that have specific functions and are used in the field of industry, hygiene, environmental protection, geotechnical and construction, transportation, aerospace, new energy, agriculture, forestry and fishery. Unlike the traditional textile industry, which is labor-intensive and of low technical content, the technical textile industry has the characteristics of capital intensive, high technical content, low labor consumption, and high labor quality requirements. With the continuous development of production technology in the technical textile industry, its application range is becoming wider and wider, and it has huge market potential. The development level of the technical textiles industry has become one of the important indicators to measure the comprehensive competitiveness of a country's textile industry. China's technical textile industry emerged in the 1950s. After half a century of development, it has become one of the three pillar industries of China's textile industry. After China's accession to the WTO in 2001, technical textiles have made great progress. Statistics showed that after joining the WTO, the fiber processing volume of the technical textiles industry has increased by more than 20%. Affected by the international financial crisis that broke out in 2008 and the subsequent European debt crisis, the growth rate of the world economy slowed down. The growth rate of the technical textile industry, which accounts for a relatively large proportion of exports, declined in 2008. After 2011, with the gradual recovery of the global economy, the growth rate of the technical textile industry began to gradually pick up. According to China Nonwovens & Industrial Textiles Association, China's technical textile industry completed a total of 15.25 million tons of fiber processing in 2018. Compared with 2.08 million tons of fiber processing in 2002, it increased 632.82% with 13.26% of CGAR.

In the world, the ratio of total technical textile fiber processing to total textile fiber processing is usually used as a measure of a country's technical textile development level. In 2018, China's industrial textile industry completed a total of 15.25 million tons of fiber processing, accounting for 27.93% of China's total fiber processing, while that of the United States, Germany, Japan have already exceeded 40%. Therefore, there is a large gap between China's technical textile industry and developed countries' technical textile industry. The Development Plans of Chinese Textile Industry (2016-2020) proposed to focus on increasing the proportion of China's technical textile fiber processing volume in the total textiles, and strive to increase its share from 25.3% at the end of the 12^th "Five-year Plan" (2015) to 33% at the end of the 13^th "Five-year Plan"(2020). In addition, although China's technical textile industry developed gradually, most enterprises were small-scale and low technology level. The industry lacked innovative leaders. There was intense competition for low-and mid-range products, while high-performance products were mainly imported or dominated by multinational companies. Therefore, no matter the industrial scale or industry structure, China's technical textile industry still has huge development potential. By 2024, it is expected that the fiber processing capacity of China's technical textile industry will exceed 20 million tons.