"International supply chain can be served as an exemplary reference for the development of China´s industry as well as some domestic brands. The development route of international supply chain, from the original processing, to the final outsourcing of design and the outsourcing of procurement, is actually a process of accountability and risk outsourcing." said Mr. Sun Ruizhe, vice president of China National Textile and Apparel Council, editor in chief of China Textile Leader, in the Textile and Apparel Industrial Chain Innovation Conference which is held in Fuzhou on June 17, 2010.

A common sense is that China textile and apparel industry is an industry that is characterized with the longest industrial chain and served most employment. The problem, however, is that China textile and apparel industry is still wandering at the bottom of the supply chain and gains no discourse power to amongst the international competition.

The competition nowadays is no longer the former point-to-point competition between companies to companies or brands to brands. Supply chain competition is gradually pronounced as the linchpin for national industrial competition. From spinning, weaving, bleaching and dyeing, mass production to the whole brand strategic management, channel management, logistics, retail and the after-sale service management, how to catch the point is becoming more and more highlighted.

The fact is that as far as the industrial chain is vertically concerned, China national textile and apparel industry is developing lopsidedly. The advantage of manufacturing process of China textile industry is rather obvious, the R&D competitive capability, the design edge and the construction of brand management is comparatively weak nonetheless. The industrial chain of China textile and apparel industry is like a giant olive. By contrast, in some developed economies, the two terminals are specially underlined and concentrated viz. the front terminal material production and end terminal further process and marketplace channel. In other words, the ideal industrial chain should be dumbbell-shaped.

Regarding the holistic development of China´s textile and apparel industry, one noticeable truth reveals that the competitive edge of low labor cost that China used to rely on is fading away while many restraining elements such as environmental reservation, resource scarcity become more highlighted and conspicuous. Mr. Sun Ruizhe also indicated that China textile industry will be confronted with one severe problem --- resource. "By the year 2040, overall global textile fiber consumption will be reaching 100 million tons while the total consumption of last year was less than 71 million tons. The problem, however, is that the resource supply can hardly meet the increase of fiber consumption. The cotton planting area in China accounted for 3.9% of overall crops planting area and over 90% of the chemical fiber derives from crude oil. The situation that China severely relies on oil import cannot be changed overnight."