The 83 exhibitors in Taiwan's contingent at the Intertextile Shanghai Apparel Fabrics trade fair, held Oct. 24-28, at the New International Expo Center in Shanghai, were in an upbeat mood as visitors made a beeline for the Taiwanese pavilion, largely sponsored by the Taiwan Textile Federation.
Indeed, Taiwan was one of the countries--along with Germany, Italy, Japan, Pakistan, Portugal and Thailand--to set up a national pavilion. Taiwan made a strong pitch for its range of functional textiles which aroused the interest not only of international buyers but also those from China.
"We are promoting our functional textiles which have easy-to-dry, anti-fungal, anti-perspiration and anti-sunlight properties," said Aaron Cheng from TTF's market promotion department. In an effort to enhance the appeal of functional textiles, the TTF has been issuing what it calls the Taiwan Functional Textiles Certification, confirming which companies are manufacturers of genuine functional textile products.
Cheng explained that consumers are not just seeking fashionable products. They are also paying greater attention to the comfort and health attributes of textiles. "It is now a common practice in industrialized countries to announce new functional textiles on a regular basis. Examples include pure cotton wrinkle-free apparel for office workers, sporting fabrics made of elastic filaments, filaments with optimal absorption and heat discharge, sun-protective textiles, thermal textiles and far-infrared products featuring heat preservation among others," he added.
For Taiwan's exhibitors, the Shanghai event has become an annual ritual that helps them maintain a strong presence in what is rated as the world's fastest growing textile market, now ready to absorb high-end products. Taiwanese exhibitors unanimously agreed that China is a hot market that promises a strong turnout of international and local buyers with a discerning eye for the latest products, technological innovations and trendy designs.
China has gradually transformed from an assembly-line country producing cheap textiles to a supplier of high-end products. It holds out the carrot of a huge potential market to foreign investors, including expensive Western brands which, in the past, were frustrated over their inability to compete against China's cheap products. Like their Western counterparts, Taiwanese exhibitors were excited about the prospect of being able to sell value-added products to Chinese buyers, who reluctantly came to the conclusion that they cannot continue to assert a strong position in the global market simply on the basis of low-cost production.
"Taiwanese exhibitors got a lot of business inquiries at the show although their products are considered to be more expensive but of better quality," said Cheng.
Even though it has been long overshadowed by textile giants China and India, Taiwan is home to a textile industry that has demonstrated resilience by switching production from low-cost to high-end products. Taiwan's global exports of textiles from January to August 2006 amounted to US$7.9 billion, posting 5.8-percent year-on-year growth, according to the TTF. For the whole of 2005, Taiwan's textile exports amounted to US$11.8 billion.
Eclat Textile Co. Ltd., a leading Taiwanese textile mill whose client base includes such heavyweights as Adidas, Banana Republic and Wal-Mart, saw a steady flow of visitors to its booth. Eclat representatives confirmed that it had received promising business inquiries.
Ray Tsang, who works in research and development for Eclat, said the company's booth had been busy receiving visitors from all corners of the world. "Our major customers visited us, and we were also able to establish new contacts."
Eclat, a vertically integrated manufacturer with knitting, dyeing, finishing and garment production operations, was displaying synthetics and organic cotton products manufactured at the company's plant in China.
"We import our cotton from the United States, India, Turkey and China. We are making a pitch here for our functional fabrics, particularly environment-friendly fabrics," Tsang added. Eclat has production operations in Taiwan, China and the United States, and has entered into joint ventures in Cambodia, Lesotho and Vietnam.
Hans Wu of Taipei-based Shinkong Synthetic Fibers Corp. said that his company had launched a new product called "cool touch." The company's range included products with names like span-tech, thermo-tech and shen-span, and included a flame-resistant filament. Shinkong operates a factory in China.
"We have had good business inquiries from China and other parts of the world," Wu said. "The local Chinese buyers are now increasingly interested in quality products, even though they are extremely price conscious."
Wu revealed that he had spoken to buyers from the United States and Canada, including Reebok, which had expressed interest in his company's fiber and yarn products. He felt that European and North American customers were increasingly leaning toward functional textiles, a trend that augured well for Taiwanese products. In the future, Wu predicted, wool would be knitted. In the past, this was not the case.
There was also a great deal of interest among suppliers of raw cotton as far as the Chinese market was concerned. Cotton Inc., a U.S.-based organization that supplies some 50 percent of its global exports to China, had set up its own pavilion for the show. "China imported some 200,000 tons of cotton in 2002; China's imports of cotton had jumped to 2 million tons in 2005. We expect China's imports of cotton to grow further in the coming years," explained Wang Jia-rong, the Shanghai based director of Cotton Inc. Some Taiwanese businesspeople visited the group's pavilion, interested in cotton supplies for their operations in China.
China's consumption of cotton has been growing steadily. Its current cotton consumption, both domestic and imported, is around 10 million tons. China's own production accounted for some 6 million tons while the remaining 4 million tons is sourced from overseas, according to Chinese government projections.
China's production of fabrics has developed faster in recent years, thanks to its own raw-material base for cotton and polyester. It has its own supply chain of weavers, spinning mills and other processors.
While the overall mood of Taiwanese and other foreign exhibitors was buoyant, many of them voiced concerns about China's rampant piracy of intellectual property rights.
The large Italian contingent, for example, was equally disturbed by the proliferation of IPR piracy in China.
Maurizio Forte, the Shanghai based Italian trade commissioner, cautiously formulated his response when asked to comment on the IPR violations in China. "Yes, IPR piracy is also worrying Italian companies. The European Union has been asking China to strictly enforce IPR protection. In fact, we are opening a legal desk at our trade commission to specifically look into complaints of IPR violations," Forte said.
According to the Italian trade commissioner, the problems stem from the enforcement level. IPR violations are treated as administrative and not as criminal offenses in China. "However, China is taking measures to ensure that the rule of law is enforced and is coming closer to international standards. In fact, Chinese brands are also being copied and this will prompt the government to take stern action," Forte said.
Copyright 2006 by Manik Mehta