The sluggish foreign trade situation has greatly increased the pressure on garment exports

Recently, the 23rd China Fair, known as the "barometer" of China's foreign trade situation in the new year, ended. According to statistics from the organizers, the total turnover of the fair was 2.841 billion U.S. dollars, a decrease of 9.87% from the previous session. Among them, light industrial goods sold 1.383 billion US dollars, an increase of 1.39%, textile and apparel goods turnover of 1.314 billion US dollars, down 15.68%. In terms of buyers, the number of merchants in Europe, the United States, and emerging markets increased significantly. European merchants increased by 16.79%, of which the North American-based North American merchants increased by 60.60%. In some emerging markets, there was a large increase in transactions, of which the turnover in Africa was 68.65 million US dollars, an increase of 35.43%.

Despite the increase in the number of buyers, the company's judgment on the overall situation of foreign trade is not optimistic. The reporter learned at the exhibition site that due to the rising costs of raw materials, labor, etc., most of the apparel exhibiting companies have increased the export prices of their products, and the minimum increase has also reached 10%. In addition, a number of company-related personages are also deeply troubled by the “difficulty of recruiting workers” problem. Due to insufficient recruitment of workers, enterprises have problems of underemployment to varying degrees, affecting the growth of corporate orders. The sluggish export environment has caused many apparel companies participating in this year to make frequent calls for difficulties.

A serious shortage of production line personnel The head of the booth of Shanghai Sheng Industrial Co., Ltd. said that the wages of workers in garment manufacturing enterprises are low, and this is an important reason why the new generation of “90s” are unwilling to engage in the textile industry. As young people generally have higher wage requirements, the problem of recruitment difficulties and rising production costs is already evident in production companies.

Luo Bing, an exhibitor of the garments exhibition area of ​​Jiangsu Huihong International Group, said that in Anhui, the company pays workers about two to three thousand yuan per month, but it still cannot attract people. The company's entire production line will require about two to three hundred workers, but the current labor shortage has reached 1/3. The company's orders this year have been reduced by half. Most of its customers are on a wait-and-see attitude. Some old customers say they want to wait for the prices of products to come down and discuss cooperation.

Mr. Wei, the chairman of Shanghai Changyuan Gifts Co., Ltd., said that the normal production of the factory requires two to three hundred workers. However, there are now only 80 workers, and the staff is seriously inadequate. The monthly salary of employees this year is an average of 15% higher than last year, but even such workers are still difficult to recruit.

Export quotation is generally raised. Fengyuan Home Textiles Co., Ltd. exhibited this product as a pet bed. Mr. Wong, who is responsible for the company, said that due to rising raw material prices, the company's product prices this year increased by 10% to 20% over the previous year, and other suppliers are generally the same. As the price of polyester increased by 20% to 30% last year, the price of cotton cloth rose by 100%. In this case, the export price of the product had to rise.

Finding the right partner manufacturers is also why many companies come to the conference. Mr. Zhai of Bruges Sportswear Co., Ltd. (Italy) Qingdao Representative Office was busy at the exhibition site one morning and still did not find a partner of Sino-Italian. He said that this year's exhibitors are significantly less than last year, and the quotation has generally risen by 30%, and everyone is very hard to accept. "In general, if the price of the product is within the range of 10%-15%, our company may accept it," said Mr. Qi.

Exhibitor Chen Xiangdong, manager of Xiamen Welfare Trading Co., Ltd., said that the company has not received orders yet, and that old customers feel that the 15% or so increase is difficult to accept and they are on the sidelines.

The profits of OEM companies are thin. Ms. Chen of Lai Chi Clothing Co., Ltd. of Quanjiao County, Anhui, pointed out that in the past two years, the competition from Southeast Asia has been very fierce. Since the labor costs in these areas are only half that of domestic companies, they cannot basically compete at the same level.

In the apparel industry, baby clothes are still a better category in overseas markets, but even if they are mid- to high-end baby clothes companies, gross profit margins are only at the 10% level. Lai Chi apparel is currently a joint venture with an Italian company to produce baby clothes and make OEM production for Italian companies. In addition to providing OEM services to this Italian company, the company also handles processing for Spain and other European and American countries. In 2012, the company produced a total of 300,000 ready-to-wear garments, with an average price of 3 to 4 US dollars per item, and sales of about 6 million yuan. However, this 600 million yuan in sales is only about 600,000 yuan in gross profit and 300,000 yuan in net profit. According to Ms. Chen, many other clothing OEMs are even worse.

According to industry surveys, labor costs in countries such as India, Vietnam and Pakistan are only equivalent to 38% of China's, raw material costs are equivalent to 70%, and textile export prices are about 10% lower than similar products in China. Under such circumstances, European and American buyers began to look for suppliers with relatively low production costs in Southeast Asia such as India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and Pakistan, and the order transfer situation has become increasingly apparent. In the weak economic growth in the European and American markets and the declining competitiveness of China's textile and apparel exports, the multiple factors will continue to exert pressure on the business.