'Textile sector not a sunset industry' – President, CNGA

13 Feb '09

2 min read

The state council recently cleared the proposals for the revival plans for the textile and clothing sector of the country, among which contained a proposal for increasing the export tax rebate from 14 percent to 15 percent, which created a sense of euphoria amongst the exporting community of the industry.

Commenting on the plan, Mr. Du Yuzhou, President, China National Garment Association said, "The plan stresses the important role of the textile industry in the overall context of the economy and its international competitive advantage, reflecting that the textile industry is not a sunset industry."

Du Yuzhou added by saying, "Internationally competitive advantage of China's textile industry still remains very obvious. Over the past 8 years, price growth in textile exports has been maintained at 8 percent, realized from a 12 percent growth in labour productivity annually and also increased employment in the sector by 5.8 percent annually.

Du Yuzhou continued by saying, “The sector should take efforts to realize three main goals in the next three years, namely, exports should grow at an annual growth rate of 8 percent, textile industry should grow at an average of 13 percent and clothing consumption in domestic market should maintain an average rate of 20 percent.”

All this put together, he said, had the capacity to add and create two million new jobs, if these three objectives could be achieved. Incidentally, the head count of labour working in the textile and garment industry has increased from 337 million in 1978 to over 2,000 million at present, of which about 80 percent are from rural areas.

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