Under the new normal, the textile industry has presented new features since this year. First, the growth is medium to high speed. The growth of production, export, investment, domestic sales, profits and other operating indicators has slowed down compared with the previous years. Since June, the previous monthly recovery trend has ended. In the second half of this year, the industry has shown a more obvious slowdown. While the economic growth has slowed down year by year to become normal, the industry still faces greater pressure to further promote transformation and upgrading. Second, contradictions, difficulties and challenges have increased. A series of serious challenges, such as the complex situation of the domestic cotton market, the obvious slowdown of domestic demand market growth, the continuous rise of comprehensive costs, and the increasingly fierce international competition, still need to be resolved. The internal structural contradictions of the industry in raw materials, production capacity, layout, enterprise organization and other aspects also need to be resolved urgently.
In the whole year, the macro environment at home and abroad was basically stable, and the market fundamentals did not deteriorate significantly. The macro-control policies related to national steady growth, structural adjustment, people's livelihood and risk prevention were beneficial to the industry as a whole. However, if the textile industry wants to maintain a stable operation, it still needs to effectively resolve various risks and contradictions. Accelerating its own transformation and upgrading is still the fundamental development task.
In 2014, the price difference between domestic and foreign cotton was still large, and the situation of domestic cotton consumption was complex. The domestic cotton management policy has achieved a new breakthrough. For newly listed Xinjiang cotton, the state has determined to grant planting subsidies based on the difference between the average market price and the target price from September to November, which will help gradually restore the market attribute of domestic cotton prices. However, as the specific implementation effect of the direct subsidy policy is still uncertain, national cotton storage, import quotas and other policies will also have a direct impact on the domestic cotton price, and the domestic cotton market situation is becoming more complex as a whole. The price of cotton and its downstream products continues to be in a downward range, which also increases the business risk and further tests the market response and internal management ability of textile enterprises. The impact of cotton on the smooth operation of the textile industry cannot be ignored.
In 2013, China imported 4.15 million tons of cotton, accounting for about 40% of the annual cotton consumption, and imported 2.1 million tons of cotton yarn, a year-on-year increase of 37%. At present, non cotton fiber processing accounts for 65% of cotton spinning enterprises. Since last year, the prices of domestic pta, polyester, polyester and other chemical fiber raw materials and products have shown a continuous downward trend. The pressure on enterprises to make losses has increased. The chemical fiber industry has experienced phased and structural overcapacity. The prominent problem of excessive market competition is an important reason.
The development of chemical fiber raw materials lags behind that of products, and the dependence of raw materials on foreign countries is high. In 2013, the dependence of China's px and meg on foreign countries reached 52.8% and 69.87%, respectively. Among them, the development of px has nearly stalled due to environmental safety and social problems, and the bottleneck of raw materials is obvious. In 2013, China imported 9.0478 million tons of px, a significant increase of 43.93% year-on-year.
From May to July this year, key pta enterprises made some progress by strengthening self-discipline, reducing output and standardizing competition order. However, how to continue to maintain self-discipline and market order, and how to effectively and normally transmit the impact of raw material price fluctuations to downstream industries, still need to strengthen attention and research. At the same time, focusing on the market terminal demand, further improving the functional and differential level of fiber and actively developing new chemical fiber varieties are not only the fundamental way to resolve the contradiction in the production capacity structure, but also the urgent and long-term task for the industry to solve the contradiction between the supply and demand of cotton and other textile raw materials and promote the industrial structure adjustment.
The textile industry is facing the pressure of gradually exceeding the emission standards required by developed countries and regions, the pressure of public opinion from society, especially from domestic and foreign environmental organizations, and the pressure of increasingly strict industry access, land use, and financing restrictions. Premier Li Keqiang proposed during the two sessions this year to resolutely declare war on pollution, further strengthening the country's determination and position on energy conservation and environmental protection. The regulatory standards for pollutant emissions of government departments at all levels have been continuously improved, the scope of supervision has been expanded, and administrative law enforcement has been strengthened. The emission standard of air pollutants for textile printing and dyeing industry will be issued soon, which further increases the pressure on the environmental protection task of the industry. There is no transition period in various standards, and the task of reducing the total amount of pollutants is heavy, which conflicts with the limited response capacity of the majority of small, medium-sized and micro textile enterprises. The industry urgently needs to obtain funds, technical input, management experience, public services and other support to enhance the capacity for sustainable development.
The adjustment of industrial layout is faced with new situations and new problems, which are mainly shown as follows: First, the pace of undertaking textile industry transfer in the central region continues to slow down. In the first eight months of this year, the proportion of total industry investment in the first eight months of this year decreased by 0.2 percentage points compared with the same period last year, and the undertaking of coastal manufacturing system transfer faces practical obstacles. To give full play to the central region's due role in the domestic layout system, further in-depth investigation and research are needed to put forward policy measures; Second, Xinjiang has gradually become a new hot spot of domestic textile industry investment, but it needs to strengthen planning guidance, truly realize the organic combination of industrial development and resource and environmental conditions, adapt to the requirements of long-term social stability, reasonably allocate the industrial structure, avoid excessive expansion of local links of the industrial chain, and reduce the development efficiency; Third, it is still urgent for the industry to strengthen the development of transnational layout. In addition to improving the in-depth investigation and research on the foreign investment environment, the influence of the regional free trade agreements participated by developed countries on the global industrial layout is deepening. The industry should also fully consider this influencing factor and study the countermeasures as early as possible.
In recent years, the prices of domestic raw and auxiliary materials, labor and other factors, as well as financing and channel costs, have continued to increase, and the pressure on comprehensive costs has become prominent. Taking the labor cost as an example, the labor cost continued to rise, with a decrease compared with the same period last year. In the first half of the year, the average monthly income of migrant workers increased by 10.3%. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, 16 regions have adjusted their low wage standards this year, with an average increase of 14.2%. Limited by the strength of capital, technology, talents, management, etc., the ability of small, medium-sized and micro enterprises to promote development is obviously insufficient, the adjustment they face is more severe, and the survival dilemma is increasingly prominent. In view of the characteristics of small and medium-sized enterprises, a series of work such as research on policy support measures and strengthening public service support need to be strengthened.
The international market has been in a slow recovery cycle after the financial crisis for a long time, and the domestic market and the macro-economy have entered a growth slowdown at the same time. At the same time, we should also see that the domestic and foreign markets are changing faster and faster in the consumer market, consumer demand, and consumption mode, which puts forward new requirements for the adaptability of textile enterprises. The online marketing channels of clothing and home textiles continued to develop rapidly. In the first half of this year, the retail turnover achieved a rapid growth of 39.2%. According to the monitoring data of China E-Commerce Research Center, the turnover of Tmall exceeded 57.1 billion yuan all day on November 11, 2014. Among them, clothing and home textile brands such as Uniqlo ranked among the top ten in sales. The substitution of traditional physical channels is worth focusing on. It is urgent to correctly grasp and focus on domestic and international market demand, do a solid job in R&D, design, product and management and other basic work, and promote innovation in science and technology, brand, marketing, management and other aspects.
