2019 International Textile Manufacturers Federation Annual Meeting Held In Portugal

From October 20 to 22 local time, the 2019 annual meeting of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation was held in Porto, Portugal. More than 300 textile industry representatives from more than 30 countries and regions around the world, together with well-known experts, manufacturers and investors in the industry, discussed how to deal with the global challenges and opportunities facing the industry.

Sun Ruizhe, President of the China Textile Industry Federation, Wang Dong, First Level Inspector of the Industrial Development Department of the National Development and Reform Commission, Xia Lingmin, Xu Yingxin, Li Lingshen, Yang Zhaohua, Vice President of the China Textile Industry Federation, Yuan Hongping, Deputy Secretary General and Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the China Textile Industry Federation, Li Jincai, Deputy Secretary General and Director of the Industry Development Department of the China Textile Industry Federation, Peng Yanli, Deputy Secretary General and Director of the Science and Technology Development Department of the China Textile Industry Federation, Qiao Yanjin, Director of Productivity Promotion Department of China Textile Federation and Director of China Textile Information Center, Yan Yan, Director of Social Responsibility Office of China Textile Federation, Zhu Beina, President of China Cotton Textile Industry Association, Gu Ping, President of China Textile Machinery Association, Hua Shan, Director of China Textile Economic Research Center, Feng Dehu, President of China Textile Construction Planning Institute, and Fu Guangwei, Executive Vice President of China Textile Engineering Society, A total of 63 people attended the meeting, including Dong Kuiyong and Li Bo, deputy directors of the Productivity Promotion Department of the China Textile Confederation, Ye Jianchun, vice chairman of the China Cotton Textile Industry Association, Li Ruiping, vice chairman of the China Printing and Dyeing Industry Association, Zheng Junlin, vice chairman of the China Industrial Textile Industry Association, representatives of various business departments of the China Textile Confederation, and representatives of China's excellent textile enterprises.

The theme of this conference is digitalization and sustainable development. Centering on this theme, the conference includes spinning committee meeting, fiber meeting, home textile committee meeting, social labor compliance project progress report, Portugal and European textile industry, future business model building, fiber and fiber application committee meeting The textile supply chain and technology and innovation are launched separately, and the impact of digitalization and sustainable development on the global textile industry is discussed in depth.

Mario Jorge Machado, President of the Portuguese Textile Association, said in his speech that it was an important and encouraging signal for the textile industry in Europe and Portugal to return to Europe through Portugal at the ITMF conference many years later. It is understood that there are more than 12000 Portuguese textile enterprises, 85% of which are located in Porto and Braga. Small and medium-sized enterprises are the main force of local industrial development. In 2018, the annual output reached 7.61 billion euros, exports 5.314 billion euros, imports 4.307 billion euros, and more than 130000 textile workers. In the past ten years, Portugal's textile industry has tried to transform price based competition into value based competition, from a simple trader to an overall solution provider, by improving its design and R&D capabilities, improving product services, speeding up industry university research cooperation and other efforts. The textile industry has recovered and entered a stable development stage. Mario Jorge Machado said that the theme of ITMF combines the two most important challenges facing the world textile industry: digitalization and sustainability. He hoped that the global textile industry elites would work together to build the textile industry into one of the most dynamic and innovative industries.

Cheng Qihe, chairman of the International Textile Federation, said that the ITMF annual meeting attracted more than 40 speakers, covering many aspects of the textile value chain. This year, ITMF introduced start-ups for the first time to share new business forms and new ideas, hoping to strengthen in-depth communication between enterprises in various countries. He said that in recent years, whether it is the "Social Labor Compliance Program" (SLCP) or the "Fashion Industry Climate Action Charter under the UN Climate Change Initiative", the textile industry has attracted more and more attention from all walks of life. In the future, ITMF will continue to represent the interests of the textile industry, continue to participate in international activities, and speak for the global textile industry.

Former Portuguese Foreign Minister Paul Poltas said that digitalization is changing the whole situation. China's retail e-commerce transactions, mobile payments and other digital economies are developing rapidly. China's economy has contributed 19% to the growth of the global economy, and has become the world's largest exporter of goods and the number one trading partner of 70 countries. At the same time, China's investment in R&D has become higher and higher, and its scientific and technological innovation ability has been greatly improved. The World Intellectual Property Organization found that China currently accounts for 21% of the world's patent applications. At this rate, it is expected to surpass the United States in two years, with a strong development momentum.

The digitalization and sustainable development of China's textile industry are deepening

At present, the rapidly rising China has become the focus of global attention. During the conference, the development of China's textile industry has attracted worldwide attention. At the meeting, Sun Ruizhe shared the topic of "Textile and Clothing Value Chain: China's Practice and Outlook" for the participants.

He first introduced the development status of China's textile and clothing industry. In recent years, China's textile industry has improved its labor productivity, enhanced its independent innovation ability, improved its green development level, and rapidly developed consumer terminal innovation, showing a booming trend. At the same time, it plays an important role in the world textile and clothing trade. A set of data shows that in 2018, China's textile and clothing exports were $119 billion and $158 billion, respectively, accounting for 37.6% and 31.3% of the world's total. China's fiber processing volume reached 54.6 million tons, accounting for 51.28% of the global total. Opportunities and challenges coexist. Sun Ruizhe said frankly that the current trade structure is undergoing profound adjustment, and the textile and clothing industry also faces certain challenges.

On the new practice of China's textile and clothing value chain, Sun Ruizhe talked about the following four points:

Data driven R&D design. Design and R&D have become the core competitiveness of future enterprise development. Chinese textile and clothing industry enterprises have taken the lead in building digital R&D centers through cross-border cooperation, improving production efficiency and enhancing product development innovation. By the end of March this year, the penetration rate of digital R&D and design tools in domestic industrial enterprises had reached 69%, and textile and clothing enterprises had performed well.

Promote value with intelligent manufacturing. According to incomplete statistics, the digitalization rate of production equipment of Chinese textile and clothing enterprises reached 36.06%, the networking rate of digital production equipment reached 27.74%, the popularization rate of production management informatization reached 50.49%, and the proportion of enterprises that achieved management and control integration reached 19.82%. The exploration of Chinese textile and clothing enterprises in the field of intelligent manufacturing has greatly improved the intelligence level of all links of the industrial chain.

Promote green construction with scientific and technological progress. As a way of economic growth and social development with the goal of efficiency, harmony and sustainability, green development has become an important trend. As can be seen from the award results of the "Textile Light" Science and Technology Award of the China Textile Industry Federation, green manufacturing has become a technological trend, accounting for an important proportion in the awards. Scientific and technological progress in China's textile industry has performed well in all aspects of green materials and technology, green production and management, green products and recycling.

The construction of industry social responsibility is deepening. In the process of implementing the social responsibility target 2025 of China's textile and clothing industry, China's textile and clothing industry actively promotes the multi-dimensional responsibility co governance of the industry, which has strongly promoted the win-win cooperation and sustainable development of the global textile and clothing industry. The Guidelines for Responsible Overseas Investment in China's Textile and Clothing Industry has effectively promoted interregional industrial cooperation and sustainable development.

In the new era, science and technology, fashion and green development have become the new orientation of China's textile industry. Sun Ruizhe said that China has a huge market. With the acceleration of urbanization and the deepening of consumption upgrading, the consumption power will be more released, and the prospect of industrial cooperation is broad. In the future, China's textile industry will focus on scientific and technological innovation, intelligent transformation Green development and pioneering collaboration will further promote technological progress, accelerate intelligent manufacturing, build a green manufacturing system, strengthen intellectual property protection, and strengthen cooperation in high-quality products, advanced technology, advantageous production capacity, high-end services, international brands and other industrial resources.

With regard to the theme of this meeting, Sun Ruizhe said that the digital economy is reshaping the infrastructure and innovation ecology of the global industry, and sustainable development is changing the development model and value model of the world economy. Both of them jointly promote the high-quality development of the global economy. However, intellectual property protection, network security Online and offline fair competition and the consistency of international procurement requirements for social responsibility in different regions also deserve attention.

Moving towards "zero carbon" industry, China's textile industry is taking action

At present, sustainable development has become the common theme of global human development. Made in China 2025 regards green development as an important engine to promote the sustainable development of China's economy during the "13th Five Year Plan" period, comprehensively promotes green manufacturing, speeds up the transformation of economic development mode, promotes industrial transformation and upgrading, and improves the international competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. The textile industry's "13th Five Year Plan" also defines the green development goals, China Textile Union has successively established the textile supply chain green manufacturing industry innovation alliance, renewable cellulose fiber industry green development alliance, etc., step by step, to jointly promote the industry to take the road of sustainable innovation, green manufacturing, and responsible sustainable development.

The industry needs green development. At the same time, it needs to be recognized that climate change is changing the business environment and pattern of market competition, affecting the enterprise's own operation, supply chain and market demand. At the meeting, Yan Yan, director of the Social Responsibility Office of the China Textile Industry Federation, shared the application practice of the Climate Action Charter for the fashion industry in China.

As China's first national social responsibility department, since its establishment in 2005, the Social Responsibility Office of the China Textile Industry Federation has taken a series of actions together with the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, successively launched the "Carbon Management Innovation 2020 Action", participated in the enterprise day activities of the United Nations Climate Change Conference, and participated in the creation of the "China Enterprise Climate Action Alliance CBCA", In 2018, together with 31 global brands and textile enterprises and 11 industry organizations, it launched the signing of the UNFCCC Fashion Industry Climate Action Charter, upgraded the carbon management innovation action to the fashion industry climate innovation 2030 action, and formulated a road map, which set the goal of reducing the total greenhouse gas emissions of the fashion industry by 40% by 2030. It is reported that the Climate Action Charter for the Fashion Industry has established a steering committee and six working groups. The Social Responsibility Office of the China Textile Industry Federation is a member of the steering committee and co chairs the policy working group.

Yan Yan said that as the only signatory of the global "charter" of the fashion industry from China, the China Textile Industry Federation has formulated the 2030 action route for climate innovation in China's fashion industry, launched China's fashion climate leadership project, and held a low-carbon training camp for climate action. A series of actions have received strong support from industry enterprises, In August this year, more than 400 enterprises from upstream and downstream of the industry chain attended the 2019 Climate Change Fashion Innovation Conference and launched the "Fashion Climate Innovation Special Fund" to promote green empowerment and climate innovation of China's fashion industry.

Yan Yan said frankly that he hoped to further improve energy utilization efficiency and energy innovation, reduce energy costs and accelerate low-carbon transformation through industrial scale effect; And through industrial cooperation, we will build a low-carbon brand in China's fashion industry, enhance the international competitiveness of Chinese enterprises in the global low-carbon supply chain, and move towards a "zero carbon" industry.

Sustainable fashion is a three-dimensional pattern of people-oriented, environment-friendly and fair competition, which is the common pursuit of the development of the global textile and clothing industry. For a long time, China's textile industry has firmly shouldered the historical responsibility of ecological civilization construction, with the ultimate goal of promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, providing strategic support for China's fashion industry to respond to climate change, and providing solutions for in-depth participation in global climate governance. It can be said that since the Paris Agreement, China has changed from a "follower" of the climate governance system to a "leader", becoming the backbone of international climate negotiations.

During the meeting, the management committee meeting of the International Textile Federation was held, and it was announced that the 2020 International Textile Manufacturers Federation would be held in South Korea.