"Butterfly Change" Of Shaoxing Keqiao Traditional Textile Industry Upgrading

In the printing and dyeing workshop of Yingfeng Technology Company, Keqiao District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province, no sewage can be seen, no odor can be heard, and everything is clean and tidy. "As long as you swipe the card here, whichever cylinder of cloth you want to produce will be automatically taken out of the warehouse, all of which are unmanned operations..." Fu Shuangli, the head of the company, said proudly. The rumbling machine sound, gurgling sewage and billowing smoke disappeared. Keqiao, with clear water, blue sky and green trees, overturned everyone's impression of the traditional textile printing and dyeing industry.

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the optimization and upgrading of industrial structure is a key measure to improve China's comprehensive economic competitiveness. As a traditional textile industry town, Keqiao has just experienced the pain of industrial transformation and upgrading.

Keqiao is a textile town with a long history and the most representative textile industry cluster base in China. From "one piece of silk" to "one piece of cloth", and then to "one piece of clothing", Keqiao is known as a new urban area "relying on one piece of cloth", with more than 150000 market players, most of which are related to the textile industry, and its printing and dyeing capacity accounts for about 1/3 of the country's total.

"More than 10 years ago, there were 212 printing and dyeing enterprises in Keqiao, distributed in 14 towns and streets, with scattered regions, extensive management, backward supporting facilities, low-grade equipment, and unprecedented difficulties and pressures in industrial development." Wang Hao, deputy director of the Bureau of Economy and Information Technology of Keqiao District, introduced. Keqiao's printing and dyeing equipment used to be various in all ages. At that time, Keqiao printing and dyeing industry was plagued by high energy consumption, high cost and high pollution due to the "low dispersion". In 2009, Keqiao District dyed 15.6 billion meters of cloth with a profit of only 1.3 billion yuan, earning only 8 cents per meter on average, but consuming 12.7 kilograms of water.

Since 2010, Keqiao has started the implementation of the printing and dyeing industry cluster upgrading project. According to the positioning of "green high-end, world leading", it has vigorously promoted equipment upgrading, green development, innovation driven, fashion leading, and created a "Shaoxing model" for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries in the province. Wang Hao said with emotion, "At that time, with the determination and courage to break our swords, we eliminated more than 2023 sets of backward printing and dyeing equipment through the dual mechanism of incentive and counter force". In accordance with the principle and path of "integration and agglomeration, merger and reorganization, and forced closure", Shaoxing has fully completed the upgrading project of printing and dyeing industry agglomeration in Keqiao and Yuecheng districts, and the number of printing and dyeing enterprises has changed from 259 (including 47 in Yuecheng) to 110.

"Now, green high-end is our biggest competitiveness." Pu Jianfeng, head of Zhejiang Yuexin Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd., said that more than half of the company's orders are from the European and American markets, and the added value per meter of cloth is more than 3 yuan. "Over the years, we have basically obtained the printing and dyeing qualification certification of some world fashion chain brand organizations."

Data shows that the proportion of international advanced equipment of Keqiao printing and dyeing enterprises has reached more than 60%, the average bath ratio of dyeing equipment has increased from 1:10 to 1:5, the average tax per mu of the printing and dyeing industry in the region has increased to 251000 yuan, and the added value per meter of printing and dyeing cloth has increased by more than 15%, forming a textile printing and dyeing industry cluster with the largest production scale, the most complete industry chain, the largest market sales, and the most advanced equipment in China.

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that we should seize the opportunities given by industrial digitalization and digital industrialization. In order to achieve high-quality development and promote industrial transformation and upgrading, the traditional textile industry must deepen the digital transformation of the industry instead of simply withdrawing from the "low-end industry" and upgrading equipment.

In the printing and dyeing industry service center of Keqiao District, the "digital twin factory" module in the "brain of weaving, printing and dyeing industry" is operating effectively. The actual business and production scenarios are simulated, analyzed, tracked, compared and calculated, and the product quality, cost and other information are tracked throughout the process. "Our digital twin visualization system can provide data support for enterprise managers to make decisions," said Wang Tao, the head of Keqiao "Weaving, Printing and Dyeing Industry Brain". Up to now, the "Weaving, Printing and Dyeing Industry Brain" built by Keqiao has been launched in the Provincial Industrial Brain Competency Center. It has access to 20 application scenarios such as digital supply chain, equipment cloud connection, intelligent production scheduling, and more than 1700 enterprises in various fields such as weaving, printing and dyeing, machinery, and environmental protection. Among them, printing and dyeing enterprises have basically achieved full coverage and promoted the industry's production efficiency to increase by more than 8%, The energy consumption is reduced by more than 10%, and the yield is increased by more than 15%.

The picture shows the printing and dyeing cluster in Ma'an Street, Keqiao District, Shaoxing City, Zhejiang Province. Courtesy of Shaoxing Keqiao District Publicity Department

Under the development mode of "Internet+" and "Intelligent+", Keqiao's textile printing and dyeing enterprises are speeding up on the digital and intelligent track. "Intelligent transformation has brought about efficiency improvement and environmental improvement." Xu Yegen, deputy general manager of Yingfeng Technology Company, said that in the past, manual color matching could lead to dye overflow and sewage cross flow if a little carelessness. Now, the system can accurately retrieve the corresponding dye and automatically deliver it to the corresponding dye vat by inputting instructions on the console, reducing the waste of dye. Baofang Printing and Dyeing Co., Ltd. invested more than 10 million yuan in digital transformation. Just one improvement in dyeing process directly reduced water consumption by 20% and saved tens of millions of yuan annually.

In recent years, Shaoxing has focused on the high-quality development of manufacturing industry enabled by science and technology to promote the upgrading of the textile industry. The printing and dyeing enterprises in Keqiao District invest more than 400 million yuan in intelligent technology transformation every year. At present, about 45% of the enterprises have color measurement and matching systems, 80% of the enterprises have semi-automatic and automatic dye auxiliary weighing and conveying systems, 100% of the enterprises have energy and sewage detection systems, and more than 70% of the enterprises have production, manufacturing, purchase, sales and inventory management systems. In 2022, Keqiao Textile will achieve an output value of 129.6 billion yuan, an increase of 7.6%, accounting for 55.8% of the total industrial output value of the district; Textile exports exceeded 100 billion yuan, accounting for 77.7% of the total exports of the region.

In the new era and new journey, Keqiao textile industry insists on transformation and upgrading, is actively exploring the new possibility of "from scratch", constantly climbing the new height of "people have my essence", getting rid of the stereotype of "traditional industry" and "sunset industry", accelerating to advanced manufacturing industry and high value-added industry, and strive to achieve high-quality development.

Reporter's notes:

General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that it is necessary to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, deepen the integration of informatization and industrialization, focus on cultivating strategic emerging industries, and build a new system for the development of modern industries. Through enterprise cluster development and industrial digitalization and intelligent transformation, Keqiao has enabled the traditional industries with high pollution and energy consumption to plug in the wings of science and technology, turned into "emerging industries" and "sunrise industries", and successfully embarked on the road of high-quality development.

Sheng Wei