China's textile, apparel industry recovers in H1

China's textile and apparel industry is showing a positive trend in the first five months of the year, with an 11.58 percent increase in trade surplus, the China National Textile and Apparel Council (CNTAC) announced Tuesday.

The CNTAC added the coefficient of export competitiveness in the same period gained 1.22 percent.

Driven by government policies of expanding domestic demand and adjusting export tax rebate rates, the textile and apparel industry quickened its step by reorganizing the industry structure and upgrading technology. The industry has progressively recovered from sinking to a low in the first two months of this year, doubling to 1.349 trillion yuan by the end of May, up 5.21 percent year-on-year. This figure includes 51,700 enterprises with an annual sales income over 5 million yuan.

Currently, increased domestic demand has become a major force to help the industry recover, an official from CNTAC told reporters. Domestic sales of textile products came to 1.053 trillion yuan in the first five months, more than 9.42 percent than last year, and increase of 2.79 percent than that of the first two months. Imports rose to 80.03 percent compared with 77.07 percent in the corresponding period.

Meanwhile, investment in the textile and apparel industry has reversed the negative growth trend. From January to May, fixed asset investment plans above 5 million yuan totaled 96.929 billion yuan, up 5.7 percent year-on-year.

Outside China, diminished export demands have hampered oversea sales, registering a 11.13 percent fall from 2008. However, the industry's share was stable in the world market in the first half of this year. The Chinese industry's share in the US market gained 3.75 percent and the trade surplus was up 11.58 percent.

Despite the industry's recovery, enterprises still can not relax, warned an official. The international economy and trade hasn't bottomed out, which leads to the pessimistic prospects of intenational sales. In addition, problems brought on by insufficient internal demand still exsit and many small- and medium-sized enterprises meet difficulties in financing, he explained.
 

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