What impact does the epidemic have on China's textile industry?

At present, Southeast Asian countries have relaxed epidemic prevention and control measures and accelerated the resumption of work and production, and the impact will soon be reflected in the field of foreign trade. As far as the textile and garment industry is concerned, some textile and garment enterprises in my country have observed that foreign trade orders flow to Southeast Asia, but since most of the lost orders are low-end processing orders, they can still bear it.

Vietnam's foreign trade performance in the first quarter was stellar. According to Vietnam Customs data, the total value of imports and exports of goods in the first quarter reached US$176.75 billion, an increase of 14.3% over the same period in 2021. In March, when entry was liberalized, the total value of imports and exports reached a record high of US$67.37 billion, an increase of 38.1% over the previous month, of which exports increased by 48.2% to US$34.71 billion. According to reports, the export momentum of Vietnam's garment manufacturing industry is strong, and many local textile enterprises have placed orders for the third quarter of this year.

"The company's foreign trade market this year is better than last year. Although the situation was not good some time ago this year, many orders have come since the depreciation of the RMB exchange rate. In addition, raw materials are not as expensive as in previous years, and the cost of raw materials has little impact on the market." Suzhou Ouyang Hong, general manager of Shijingzhi Textile Technology Co., Ltd. told reporters, "I have also seen some orders flowing to Southeast Asia. At present, most of the textile orders transferred to Southeast Asia are processed. The textile industry has a long industrial chain, and some links are complex, and Southeast Asian countries cannot Completely undertake. But we also noticed that Southeast Asian countries have a certain industrial foundation and accumulation in the clothing industry, and can grab a lot of orders in clothing trade.”

Ouyang Hong also revealed that some foreign buyers came to him to purchase textile fabrics, which is different from the previous delivery of textile fabrics to a processing location in China, but asked him to send textile fabrics directly to Vietnam, obviously to process garments in Vietnam. However, Ouyang Hong's company will not be transferred to Vietnam for production, because the company's textile business involves a lot of ingredients and needs supporting support. The relevant domestic industrial chain is relatively complete, while Vietnam can only complete part of the processing. A lot of effort and cost to find supporting manufacturers, inconvenient and cost-effective.

Industry insiders believe that the outflow of orders to Southeast Asian countries is not a temporary phenomenon and may become the norm.