Interview With Wang Yu At "China Textile And Fashion Show" In Australia

Recently, fabrics from China,

Nearly 1000 people from home textiles producers and traders participated in the twelfth Australian "China Textile and fashion show" held at Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.

China's textile and apparel exhibition sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce in China started in 2001. It was originally designed to help enterprises develop the Australian market. Now it has organized more than a thousand Chinese companies to participate in the exhibition. The exhibition has become an influential exhibition of textile clothing in Australia.

The reporter interviewed Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce on the issues related to the current China Textile and fashion show and the export of China's clothing industry.

Media: Hello, vice president Wang Yu! We understand that Australia's China Textile and fashion show has been held for 11 sessions. This year is the twelfth session. Can you briefly introduce the origin of this fashion show and the characteristics of this exhibition?

Wang Yu, vice president of the Chinese textile import and Export Chamber of Commerce: the first China Textile and garment exhibition, Australia (abbreviated as Australia exhibition) was held in 2001.

In order to realize the diversification of the export market, the original intention is to open up the non quota market and reduce the export pressure to the European and American countries.

Over the past twelve years, the Australian exhibition has developed into one of the most important textile and apparel trade platforms in Australia and its surrounding countries.

The characteristics of this Australian Exhibition: the total number of exhibition booths in Australia reached nearly 300, with more than more than 260 exhibitors and 7500 square meters of venues.

The exhibitors mainly come from Jiangsu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. There are also a large number of exhibitors in central and western provinces such as Hubei, Jiangxi and Eastern three provinces.

The exhibitors include textiles, men's wear, women's wear, children's wear, home textiles, hat and accessories.

The Australian exhibition is sponsored by the Ministry of Commerce of China, and is jointly sponsored by the people's Government of Jiangsu and Shandong. It will be jointly hosted by Jiangsu and Shandong business hall.

In addition, the Australian exhibition continued to be held in conjunction with the Australian International Procurement Exhibition (AISF) in the same period. The two exhibition shared customer resources and greatly enhanced the external image and effect.

Media: China's textile exports occupy a considerable proportion in China's export business. Please briefly introduce the current situation of China's major overseas textile export markets and the comparative advantages of Chinese textiles in overseas markets.

Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce: in 2012 1-9, China's textile and clothing exports totaled 187 billion 160 million US dollars, and imports amounted to US $18 billion 170 million.

Exports of textile and garment industry accounted for 13% of the total foreign trade export, accounting for 7% of imports and exports.

The main export market situation of China's textile and clothing: China's exports to the EU have been declining, with a drop of 1-9 in 13.5% months, a slight increase in exports to the United States, an increase of 3.4%, and an increase of 1.4% in Japan's exports.

It is worth mentioning that China's exports to ASEAN increased by 20.8%, of which Malaysia, Indonesia and Vietnam became the main driving force for growth.

Comparatively speaking, the comparative advantage of China's textile and garment industry lies in its strong industrial foundation, complete industrial chain and active industries.

China has complete facilities, rich experience in foreign trade, skilled workers, high efficiency, fast delivery speed, high product quality and high difficulty coefficient. It is good at manufacturing process and design complex products, and the added value of products is higher than that of Southeast Asia.

Moreover, a large number of mature enterprises in China have made great progress in international operation, scale development, R & D design, brand building, and international marketing network construction, and are increasingly becoming the level of European and American enterprises.

These advantages are not yet available in Southeast Asian countries.

Media: how do you think of the Australian export environment and the Australian textile and garment market? What types of Chinese textile products are exported to Australia? Will there be new export growth points in the future? If so, what market segments and products may they come from?

Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce: the export characteristics of China to Australia: in 1-9, China exported to Australia $3 billion 530 million of textile and clothing products, including clothing exports of US $2 billion 650 million, an increase of 6.5% over the same period last year, and textile exports of US $880 million, up 4.4% over the same period last year.

China's textile and apparel exports to Australia were relatively stable and were not affected by too many economic crises.

The order price is better, which is about 20% higher than that in Europe and America.

Moreover, Australian businessmen are highly honest and cooperative.

The Australian market has complete sales and extensive geographical coverage. The government is open to the outside world. Its political and economic and business environment is very good. It has not set obstacles to the import of our textile and clothing, nor has it done any industry or administrative intervention in my exhibition.

All these are favorable factors for Sino Australian textile and garment trade.

The main products of China's textile and apparel exports to Australia include: casual clothing for men and women, cotton and chemical fiber, accounting for 60%, home textiles, 10%, socks and hats.

Trousers, T-Shirts, bed textiles, shirts, sweaters, jackets and jackets, dresses and skirts, pajamas, underwear, baby clothes, etc.

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In the future, the demand for raw materials and accessories will also be provided for the Chinese textile enterprises to produce new senior clothing, professional wear and surfing costumes, swimsuits, beach wear, mountaineering clothes, waterproof jackets and sunscreen clothing.

Australian market consumption diversification, personalized, focus on leisure, room quality, so home textile products in Australia will have a good market development space.

Media: low cost and price competitive advantages were Chinese textiles.

However, with the increase of domestic labor costs and the rising price of raw materials, the former advantages are weakening, and this trend is particularly evident in some labor-intensive industries, such as chemical fiber textile industry.

How do you view this point? When the cost is no longer the core advantage, what is the key and way out for Chinese textile enterprises to enhance their international competitiveness?

Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce: Despite the weakness of the current foreign trade environment and the increase in the cost of the enterprises, China's textile and garment industry still has the advantages of strong foundation, complete industrial chain and active industries compared with those in Southeast Asian countries. The status of the first big country is still stable in the short term.

The labor cost of China's textile and garment industry is obviously at a disadvantage compared with that of Southeast Asian countries. The salaries of some other countries are only 1/4 to 1/5 of that of China.

Although Southeast Asia has the advantage of labor price, but because of the small country, the number of available labor is insufficient, the efficiency of workers is very low, the industry supporting services are not perfect, it can not accept the pfer of large factories with more than 10000 people, and it is difficult to establish the scale advantage.

In addition, under the pressure of global inflation, the wage increase of Southeast Asian countries has increased rapidly.

While the cost advantage is fading away, the competitiveness of China's export enterprises depends mainly on the two ends of the smile curve.

The first is to increase R & D investment, improve the technological content of products, and enhance their hard competitiveness, including design creativity and product development, product quality and quality improvement, and further consolidate the existing advantages in the field of high-end products with high added value and complex technology.

Secondly, we should expand the international market in all aspects, including actively participating in international exhibitions, investing in mergers and acquisitions abroad, and even listing overseas.

At the same time, we should reduce the logistics cost, develop low cost raw materials, reduce the comprehensive cost, improve the ability to receive orders and ensure the quality of delivery.

Our chamber of Commerce believes that the government should create a more relaxed business environment and lower taxes and fees.

Media: for China's export enterprises, including textile industry, the RMB exchange rate and trade tariffs are the two unavoidable topics in the business operation level besides labor cost and raw material price factors.

We note that the Australian dollar exchange rate has risen considerably in recent years.

In your opinion, is the pulling effect of a strong Australian dollar on China's textile exports obvious? Is China's textile exporters effectively hedging the business risks caused by foreign exchange fluctuations through effective hedging?

Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce, said: the strong Australian dollar will definitely play a stimulating role in China's exports.

More and more enterprises are paying attention to the change of exchange rate. Some enterprises track the change of exchange rate for a long time, avoid risks in time according to their own experience, and some enterprises use option locking or long-term foreign exchange trading to lock in the exchange rate, that is, the cost of purchasing foreign exchange.

In terms of trade tariffs, Australian textile import tariffs dropped from 25% to 17.5% in January 1, 2005.

In 2010, import tariffs on garments and textile products fell to 10% again, while other textiles dropped to 5%.

It is understood that in 2015, import tariffs on all garments and textile products in Australia will drop to 5%.

It is believed that this will further promote the export of Chinese textiles to Australia.

At the level of trade settlement, most Chinese and Australian businesses still use the US dollar settlement. However, with the further increase of trade between the two countries, the disadvantages of using US dollar settlement become increasingly apparent, and the direct settlement between the Australian dollar and the RMB will be more conducive to the development of bilateral trade.

In March this year, the Commonwealth of Australia Reserve Bank (central bank) signed a 30 billion Australian dollar currency swap agreement with the people's Bank of China.

This will lay a foundation for the further settlement of the Australian dollar and RMB in a wider range, and this will be significant for the bilateral trade, because China is Australia's largest trading partner and export market, and such an agreement will help further strengthen economic and trade relations and cross-border cooperation at the enterprise level.

Media: after Chinese enterprises invested in Australian mining industry, Australia's agriculture and planting industry has also become a new overseas investment target for Chinese enterprises.

In the near future, a Chinese textile enterprise bought a cotton plantation in Australia.

How do you view the investment and expansion of Chinese textile enterprises in Australia?

Wang Yu, vice president of the China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce: there is no doubt that in the context of global economic integration, integrating resources on the global scale with the industrial chain upstream and downstream is becoming an obvious feature and trend of today's global economy.

Cross border resource integration not only provides technological cooperation, capital and brand sharing, but also helps channel sharing and reducing the operating costs of enterprises.

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In fact, "integrating global resources and creating pnational groups" is one of the things that Chinese enterprises with international strategic vision are doing at the moment.

The Chinese government is very supportive and will continue to provide good services.

As an important member of the international community, Australia has strong economic strength and status, and can provide abundant resource products, especially raw materials such as cotton.

The expansion of Chinese enterprises' investment in Australia is very normal. This is the only way for Chinese enterprises to go global. Of course, investment from China is bound to inject vitality into the economic development of Australia, and it has brought many positive results in increasing Australian employment, increasing revenue and economic cooperation between the two countries.

Over the past 5 years, Australia has become the most dynamic, economically and politically stable country in the world.

In addition, Australia has abundant resources to meet the rapid development of China, especially the advanced nature, strong R & D capability and intact financial service environment of agriculture, etc., which provide a large number of opportunities for Chinese enterprises.

Moreover, a number of Chinese banks have opened branches in Australia to provide comprehensive services for bilateral economic and trade exchanges and two-way investment.

What is particularly important is that the Australian government usually does not interfere with foreign investment in the framework of WTO agreements and safeguarding Australia's national interests.

Media: as far as we know, one of the purposes of the China Textile Import and export chamber is to "promote the sustainable development of China's textile and clothing import and export trade".

What do you think are the difficulties of Chinese textile enterprises in opening up the Australian market? What are the new characteristics and patterns of the future international cooperation between China and Australia? What are the initiatives and plans of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce to help more Chinese textile enterprises and products enter the Australian market?

Wang Yu, vice president of China Textiles Import and Export Chamber of Commerce, Australia: some textile and clothing tariffs in Australia are still relatively high, and there is not much communication and connection between industry organizations.

Future cooperation will become increasingly close, because the trend of mutual demand between Australia and China will become stronger and stronger. This is determined by the complementarity of the two countries' national conditions and economic structure.

For China, on the one hand, it needs resource products. On the other hand, the quality and quality of textile and apparel products exported by China will be higher and higher, and will be more popular with local consumers in Australia.

In the future, if we want to continue to make bigger and stronger Australian exhibitions, it is possible to subdivide exhibits, such as the separation of light industry from textiles. At the same time, on the basis of doing well the exhibition of Australia exhibition, the chamber of Commerce will further strengthen exchanges and cooperation between Chinese and Australian entrepreneurs through various forms.

Media: Thank you vice president Wang Yu for accepting our interview in a busy schedule. I wish this Australia exhibition a complete success and also wish Australia and China.

There will be more cooperation in the future.