China's textile industry stretches to handle boom

With China's progress in preventing and controlling the coronavirus pandemic, the country has taken the global lead in the resumption of production, ensuring supplies for the international market and supporting industrial and supply chains around the world.

One sector in which that can be seen is textiles. China is the world's largest textile producer and exporter with an advantage in exporting labor-intensive products.

Yan Liangmin, general manager of Zehao Textile Co. in the Keqiao district of Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, said, "Our products are mainly exported to countries in South America. The volume of foreign trade orders has seen an increase since May, and has basically recovered to the level of last year since the beginning of June, despite the damage inflicted by the pandemic.

"The major difficulty confronting us now is rising ocean freight costs due to the increasing demand for transport because of China's booming export volume and the poor circulation of containers caused by the pandemic."

Since May, orders for Chinese fabrics and raw textile materials have increased by more than 100 percent. Clothing industry orders have undergone a year-on-year increase of more than 200 percent, quadrupling in July, according to data released by Alibaba.com, the business-to-business online marketplace run by Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group.

Cai Jingwen in Hangzhou contributed to the story.