In The Post Epidemic Era, What Are The Opportunities For Textile And Garment Export Enterprises?

In 2020, China's textile and garment export enterprises withstood the impact of the poor international trade environment, and achieved a rapid growth in exports throughout the year. In 2021, China's textile and clothing export enterprises will undoubtedly face challenges, but also have opportunities. Studying and judging in advance can help enterprises prepare for the rainy days and keep calm in the face of crisis.

Ministry of Commerce: China's foreign trade situation is still complex and grim

First of all, textile and clothing enterprises should have an overall grasp of this year's export situation.

On January 29, the Ministry of Commerce held a press conference on business work and operation in 2020. Zhang Li, deputy director of the foreign trade department of the Ministry of Commerce, said at the meeting that the foreign trade situation in 2021 is still complex and grim, with challenges and opportunities coexisting.

Tension said that in terms of challenges, there are both long-term challenges and short-term pressures. The new pneumonia epidemic is still spreading around the world, the world economy is in deep recession, the foundation of recovery is not stable, the supply chain pattern of international industrial chain is deeply adjusted, and uncertain and unstable factors are increasing. In recent years, foreign trade enterprises have also felt a lot of pressure in shipping logistics, exchange rate, employment, raw materials and other aspects. Therefore, the difficulties that foreign trade may face should not be taken lightly.

At the same time, we should also see that with the political advantages of the party's leadership, the institutional advantages of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the super large-scale market and the complete industrial system, China's comprehensive competitive advantage still exists. In the process of building a new development pattern, China will further promote institutional opening-up and innovative development of foreign trade, which are the foundation and confidence for China to meet difficulties and do a good job in foreign trade.

Zhang pointed out that China will set 2021 as the "year of innovation and development of foreign trade", build a new development pattern around services, spare no effort to stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment, unswervingly promote the innovative development of trade, and strive to do a good job in foreign trade from the two aspects of "consolidation" and "promotion".

On the one hand, it is necessary to consolidate the foundation for stable and good foreign trade, maintain the continuity, stability and sustainability of policies, and firmly stabilize the basic market of foreign trade and foreign investment. On the other hand, we should enhance the ability of foreign trade services to build a new development pattern and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of foreign trade. Focus on the implementation of three major plans:

First, the plan of "excellent in and good out". Optimize the structure of export products and improve the quality of export products. We will foster new forms and modes of foreign trade, such as cross-border e-commerce, market procurement and bonded maintenance. We will build a national import trade promotion and innovation demonstration zone.

The second is the trade industry integration plan. A number of foreign trade transformation and upgrading bases were newly identified. Cultivate a number of processing trade industrial parks.

The third is the unimpeded trade plan. We will continue to support the conversion of export products to domestic sales. We will work with more trade partners to build a smooth trade mechanism, especially the countries related to the belt and road initiative. Guangzhou Fair will be well run and online exhibition will be developed. Expand the scale of overseas warehouses. Strengthen the construction of international business system. Continue to increase power for China's foreign trade development.

Three things to pay close attention to in 2021

For textile and garment foreign trade enterprises, there are several things that need to be paid close attention to in 2021.

The first is the expectation of RMB appreciation.

As China took the lead in controlling the epidemic, the economy recovered rapidly and the RMB appreciated all the way. Since June 2020, the RMB exchange rate against the US dollar has risen by more than 6000 points. Looking forward to 2021, analysts believe that international capital favors RMB assets, market forces should be in the state of promoting strong RMB appreciation, and the RMB appreciation rate will probably continue in the first half of the year.

Some large-scale export enterprises have adopted foreign exchange locking, hedging and other financial instruments to avoid risks, while small and medium-sized foreign trade enterprises lack financial resources and professional skills to cope with frequent fluctuations in exchange rate. How to deal with the exchange rate fluctuations is a key to the small and medium-sized export textile and clothing foreign trade enterprises in 2021.

As a response, some textile and clothing foreign trade enterprises have begun to use RMB settlement to avoid the risk brought by the fluctuation of the US dollar exchange rate. For buyers from Southeast Asian countries, Chinese textile export enterprises have already started to use RMB for settlement. In Africa, there are also many foreign trade textile enterprises using RMB for settlement.

The second is the export potential to be tapped in the post epidemic era.

2020 is a special year. Affected by the epidemic situation, China's textile and clothing export fluctuates greatly, showing a trend of first restraining and then rising. From the third quarter of last year, many garment foreign trade factory orders began to recover or saturated, and even burst. So, can this export momentum continue this year?

It can be predicted that the international market procurement direction will return to normal track with the improvement of the epidemic situation. The European Union, the United States, Japan and other markets turn their eyes to ASEAN, South Asia, and countries and regions with geographical advantages. The market share of Chinese products may fall. Export textile enterprises should pay attention to the change of purchasing trend and arrange in advance.

In terms of export products, epidemic prevention materials will continue to be an important force to boost export growth. At present, the world has not yet come out of the shadow of the epidemic situation. Although China's export of epidemic prevention materials has fallen down compared with the peak period, it will still maintain the characteristics of large-scale and high growth, which is still the main force to promote the export growth.

At the same time, in the post epidemic era, textile and garment cross-border e-commerce platform will be further developed. Other experts predict that foreign trade orders will be more fragmented, small orders will become the mainstream, and the survival space of pure trade foreign trade enterprises will be narrower and narrower. China's foreign trade textile enterprises, especially B2B foreign trade enterprises, should adjust their product lines and reposition their customers.

Third, there is a new trend of "from outside to inside".

As early as the Sino US trade frictions began, some textile and garment foreign trade enterprises consciously shifted their focus from foreign trade to domestic trade. At present, speeding up the formation of a new pattern of high-quality development with the domestic big cycle as the main body and the domestic and international dual cycle promoting each other has become the theme of China's economic and social development. Therefore, the transformation of foreign trade into domestic sales has become the choice for many export enterprises to seek development.

Faced with the dilemma of slow recovery of the terminal consumer market, especially the poor overseas economy, the unemployment rate and the number of bankrupt enterprises in some countries continue to rise. Many textile and garment export enterprises in China know that they can't put eggs in one basket. Therefore, while developing overseas orders, they pay attention to the development of the mainland market, actively seek benefits from high quality and share business risks, which has achieved good results The economic benefits of.