Functional innerwear undeterred by tough times

21 Aug '08

2 min read

It has been noted that due to several problems Chinese product prices rose, making them unaffordable for the buyers.

Consequently, since the beginning of this year many US and EU importers started shifting their orders to countries other than China, and Taiwan emerged as one of the leading suppliers, especially for innerwear and functional clothing.

However, this was not the case a decade ago.

Around 1997-1998 underwear industry progressed rapidly, number of manufacturers suddenly going up to over 300.

Even so, after this boom, the industry started moving downwards. The key reason for this was the cheap Chinese products flooding local markets. Most of these items were imported illegally, boasting fake place of origin and other such forged details.

Atleast 20 million dozens of Chinese underwear products entered Taiwan's markets each year. As a result many domestic SMEs were forced to shutdown.

Experts say that Taiwan Textile Federation must be given credit for taking aggressive measures and assisting the industry to remain afloat.

The Federation organized training sessions so as to help enterprises produce high value-added items by using advanced design and technology as well as marketing techniques.

This also helped underwear and functional-wear companies to meet international product quality standards.

Besides, a league and network platform for Taiwan qualified-underwear manufacturers was also set up.

Thus, today, functional innerwear of Taiwan has gained huge popularity, both, in local as well as international markets. Infact, the underwear made from bamboo charcoal fibre is attracting massive interest from top dealers in the world.

Nevertheless, experts stress that this is not enough and Government should draft schemes and policies that will lift underwear and functional-wear industries and establish them on the global arena.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - China

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