Consumption by the domestic population in China accounts for 49 percent of GDP. Of this, clothing consumption accounts for 10.77 percent of per capita expenditure of urban residents while, rural clothing consumption totals to 5.9 percent of the same.
China's trade surplus accounts for 29 percent of GDP and the trade surplus of the textile industry accounts for nearly 60 percent of GDP. In effect, 83 percent of China's trade surplus was created by the textile industry from 2001 to 2008.
Experts stress that the textile industry is like a pillar of the economy and also concerns livelihoods of millions of people in the country., The textile industry chain is very long, which accounts for the labour intensive nature of the sector.
Beginning from cotton to garments, home textiles and industrial textiles, it absorbs 20 million people, of which about 80 percent are migrant workers. Raw materials like cotton, wool, silk, hemp also help 100 million farmers earn their livelihood.
Fibre2fashion News Desk - China