Textile sector faces huge tech challenge: Report

Although the Chinese government has pledged to use Internet technology to upgrade manufacturing industry, there is a huge gap between the desire of the authorities and reality in the textile industry, said a report released on Friday by the China National Textile and Apparel Council.

The council surveyed 103 textile and apparel enterprises in Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Hubei, Fujian and Guangdong provinces from January to March.

The survey dealt with cloud computing, information security protection and intellectual property protection, said Liang Xiaohui, the main designer of the survey, and deputy chief economist of the China Textile Information Center, a department of the council.

"The three issues are central to the transformation of the Chinese textile industry, and they are interconnected," Liang said.

The report found that only one enterprise out of 103 said it was well aware of the applications of the cloud computing.

Privately owned textile and apparel enterprises have a stronger desire to improve their production efficiency through cloud computing techniques than State-owned enterprises and foreign firms. But they are more sensitive to the huge initial investment required.

"Private enterprises are very interested in introducing robots to their workshop, because of the mounting pressure from rising labor costs," said Qiao Yanjin, director of the information center. "The textile and apparel industry is already a leader in China in the field of transformation and sustainable development. Their difficulty shows the challenge facing the overall restructuring of China's manufacturing sector."

The report found that 11 enterprises out of the 103 surveyed said they suffered from threats to information security, with files and data being stolen, and their systems invaded. These enterprises would like to use more reliable information technology to protect their information security.

More than 50 percent of the sampled companies conduct international business. But most of them have few channels to know related industrial laws and rules in their market countries.

IPR protection is another area that concerns enterprises. The report found that companies that pay special attention to information security show more concern about IPR. Among the enterprises saying they do not care about information security, 66.7 percent do not have their own intellectual property rights. Sun Ruizhe, vice-chairman of the council, said: "After the enterprises' intellectual property rights are infringed upon by their competitors, they will become more active in IPR protection."

The report suggests the Chinese government should strengthen the implementation of related laws to raise the industry's awareness of IPR protection, provide more legal services to let domestic enterprises get more familiar with foreign laws, and make it easier to spread the application of information technology in the textile and apparel industry.