Chinese textile industry shifting to Southeast Asia

24 Dec '13

1 min read

The modern textile industry, which began with the industrial revolution in the UK and the US, and later got transferred to the Asian tigers like China twenty or thirty years ago, has begun shifting to Southeast Asia in recent years.

Compared to the previous years, China’s textile industry currently has only two advantages—vast size and presence of industrial clusters. But, there are many pressures faced by the textile industry, including higher raw material prices, high labour costs and recruitment difficulties.

According to data, the wages of textile workers in China have risen by about 4 times in the past decade. In addition, the younger generation lacks enthusiasm to work for the textile and garment industry, which gives rise to recruitment difficulties.

Moreover, the appreciation of the Chinese currency is also contributing to the erosion of export competitiveness of the Chinese textile and apparel enterprises.

As a result, Vietnam replaced China as the world’s largest supplier of Nike around three years ago.

The industrial transfer generally takes place to lower costs. Hence, when China no longer has a low-cost advantage, a shift towards Southeast Asian countries, which have low-cost advantage, is obvious.

Fibre2fashion News Desk - India

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