Shaoxing is a county which has the largest concentration of textile and garment enterprises among all counties in the country. In 2008, the county produced 2 million tons of various petrochemicals, 5.3 billion meters of synthetic fabrics and 15.1 billion meters of printed and dyed cloth.
Its annual output of petrochemicals and fabrics as well as its exports of petrochemicals account for 10 percent of the overall figures of the textile industry. But in a county with such high reliance on the textile industry, has a woefully low number of textile designers when compared to the national average.
It is reported that China's textile and garment industry has 19.6 million workers, and account for 14 percent of the workforce from amongst the medium and large companies in the country, but the pool of textile designers adds up to only 1.5 percent of the total employment in the textile industry.
In the current financial crisis, textile entrepreneurs in the county hope to upgrade the textile industry and make better fabrics in order to improve profits, but they are running short of talented designers. But all this is set to change now, with the setting up of a training academy for textile designers.
China started an appraisal project of textile fabric designers in 2006. So far, these training projects have churned out over a 100 fabric designers, of which nearly 50 are advanced designers. Shaoxing County has now launched a training program which will guide over 300 aspiring designers in the first batch itself.
The textile and garment industry in the county hopes to train and add over 800 textile designers in the next three years, to fill up the shortfall in the sector. From amongst the 800, 100 are expected to complete the advanced designer's course.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - China
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