China´s textile machinery industry saw a continued decline in output and sales as well as a hefty slump in imports and exports during the first two months of 2009, according to a survey conducted by China Textile Machinery Association on 1009 textile machinery and equipment manufacturers.

From January to February, the sector´s gross industrial output value reached 6.61 billion yuan (967.8 million US dollars), down 16.62 percent over the comparable period of last year; sales revenue dropped 10.65 percent to 6.94 billion yuan; total profits of the industry plunged 77.38 percent to 71.1 million yuan. 296 enterprises suffered losses and the loss coverage was 29.34 percent; losses amounted to 247 million yuan, 94.25 percent higher than year-earlier level; profit ratio of production lost 2.89 percentage points to 1.07 percent while that ratio of sales was only 4.15 percent.

Finished products of the industry rose 8.94 percent to 4.53 billion yuan, taking up 14.28 percent of the average balance of current assets, 1.28 percentage points higher from the year-earlier period. Goods delivered for export slumped 53.38 percent to 399 million yuan. Among the 22 textile machinery manufacturing provinces and municipalities, 15 exported their products to the overseas market. East China´s Jiangsu province ranked first in term of value of export goods, followed by Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shandong and Shanghai, and the five jointly took up 94.01 percent of the country´s total value of exported textile machineries. Sales revenues of the textile machinery industry in major provinces and municipalities including Heilongjiang, Shanxi, Tianjin, Shanghai and Beijing went down. In contrast, those in Anhui, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Jiangxi and Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region managed to grow. Jiangsu province led textile machinery manufacturers with a main operating revenue of 2.06 billion yuan, holding 29.65 percent of the total. But its sales revenue fell 14.08 percent from a year earlier.

During the same period, China´s total import and export value of textile machinery fell sharply by 58.61 percent from a year earlier, totaling 404 million US dollars, of which, 133 million US dollars were from exports, down 47.78 percent; and 271 million US dollars from imports, down 62.42 percent.

All types of textile machinery saw a decline in imports from January to February. Nonwoven machinery led the slump, down 92.38 percent from the previous year´s period. Knitting machinery ranked the first with imports claiming 33.25 percent of the total. German was the largest textile machinery exporter to China in February with the exports valued at 100 million US dollars, followed by Japan, Italy, the U.K. and U.S. Foreign-invested enterprises were major importers in February. The imports mainly took the form of general trade. East China´s Zhejiang province imported 41.13 million US dollars of textile machinery in February, leading all Chinese provinces and municipalities in textile machinery imports.

Textile machinery exports plummeted 47.78 percent in the first two months from the year-earlier period, marking a new low since 2001.Except for the 7.28 percent growth in loom exports, exports of the other types of textile machinery all suffered a decline. Knitting machinery led the fall, down 32.9 percent to 51 million US dollars in February. India turned out to be the largest importer of China´s textile machinery. Private enterprises ranked first in exports. Zhejiang province led the country in term of textile machinery exports.

Source: China Textile Leader