Since the beginning of the 20th century, the global textile and garment industry has experienced five rounds of industrial transfer. At this time, during the fifth round of industrial transfer, although China is still the world's largest textile and garment exporting country, but in recent years, global trade friction The intensification has caused the domestic textile and garment industry to gradually shift outward.
Since the first industrial revolution, the United Kingdom has taken the lead in setting up a manufacturing center for the textile industry in the world. However, the second industrial revolution in the 1930s first came into being in the United States. The power, chemical, steel and other industries developed rapidly, standardization, Scale has become a new synonym for the textile industry, and the global textile industry center is also moving to the United States. After the Second World War, although Japan was a defeated country, with the support of the United States, the industrial level recovered rapidly. At this time, the manufacturing focus of the world textile industry gradually shifted to this, and at this time the global industrial chain was gradually formed. However, in the vicinity of the 1960s and 1970s, after a period of development in Japan and Germany, the labor cost gradually increased, and as a labor-intensive, industrial value-added textile industry, it began to gradually move to the "Asian Four Little Dragons". Transfer of areas with abundant human resources and low cost. In the 1980s, China under the reform and opening up had obvious advantages in industrial policies and abundant labor resources. At this time, the “Asian Four Little Dragons” have gradually entered the middle and high income level, and the relatively low-end textile industry has begun to shift to the developing countries headed by China.
After 40 years of reform and opening up, China's economy has developed rapidly, but labor costs have gradually increased. The textile industry, which is a labor-intensive industry, is gradually shifting outward. Especially in recent years, global trade frictions, especially the intensification of trade friction between China and the United States, have further promoted the transfer of the textile industry.
In recent years,although the export volume of textile yarns, fabrics and products has shown an upward trend, with the development of US-China trade friction, some countries such as India, Mexico, Indonesia and other countries have launched anti-dumping against China. The overall export growth rate has slowed down noticeably. In October 2019, China exported 10.456 billion US dollars of textile yarns, fabrics and products. From January to October 2019, China exported 99.103 billion US dollars of textile yarns, fabrics and products, a year-on-year increase of 0.4%. In the field of clothing, the export volume has been declining year by year. In October 2019, China exported 12.712 billion US dollars of clothing and clothing accessories; from January to October 2019, China exported textile yarns, fabrics and products of 125.047 billion US dollars, down 4.8% year-on-year.
From the perspective of industrial transfer, Southeast Asia has become the main area for the transfer of textile industry in the later period.
In Vietnam, for example, after rapid development in recent years, Vietnam has become one of the world's three major textile and garment exporters. At this time, Vietnam relies on cheap labor, production resources and tariff preferences for Japan, South Korea and the European Union. More and more overseas companies are shifting orders. Foreign brands such as Uniqlo and Nike, such as Blum Oriental and Lutai A, have increased their industrial layout in Vietnam. As an obvious export-oriented country, the export value of textiles and clothing in Vietnam has increased year by year. By 2018, Vietnam’s textile and apparel exports have exceeded US$36 billion, an increase of 16.01% year-on-year. And set the highest growth level since 2015. At the end of 2018, Vietnam’s 2019 textile and garment industry’s export volume reached 40 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 10.8%. This year is also expected to be achieved. In the first seven months of 2019, the export value of textiles and clothing in Vietnam reached 18.3 billion U.S. dollars, a year-on-year increase of 10.5 percentage points, and 45.7% of the annual target was completed.
In summary, although the textile and garment industry in Southeast Asia has made great progress in recent years, it still faces certain constraints. If the basic supporting facilities are not perfect, most of the raw materials for production depend on imports. At present, China's status as the world's largest textile processing country is still unshakable, and industrial upgrading will be the development direction of China's textile and garment industry in the later period. In the global chain, brands, sales, advanced fabrics and high-quality raw materials are all in the United States, Europe and Japan, and China and Southeast Asia are still at the low end of this value chain. The future development direction will be to increase the added value of China's products, increase the research and development of textile raw materials, and develop towards branding and high value-added. The future development prospects of the industry will be bright and beautiful.
